10/13 Scores

A standing room only crowd, estimated to be between 7,000 and 8,000, packed Lee J. Stone Stadium Friday night for the varsity football clash between undefeated Asheboro and Eastern Randolph high schools.Asheboro High School fans — letters painted on the students’ chests spell out ‘Comet Nation’ — cheer on their Blue Comets team which won 12-10. The stadium seats more than 4,700 and fans were several rows deep standing around the field to watch the game. (Clifton Hughes / The Courier-Tribune)

Asheboro remains undefeated, upends No. 1 Wildcats
By Dennis Garcia, Sports Editor, The Asheboro Courier-Tribune

ASHEBORO — For those who didn’t believe, they have to now. For those who wanted to believe but just couldn’t, go ahead and believe. For those who still had doubts, have doubts no more.

The Asheboro High School football team is as good as their undefeated record reflects and that was stamped with an exclamation point Friday night as the Blue Comets recorded a heart-stopping 12-10 Mid-Piedmont Conference victory over league bully Eastern Randolph in front of a crowd of nearly 8,000 at Lee J. Stone Stadium.

Blake Brewer’s 1-yard TD run with 5:33 left to play in the contest proved to be the winning score as the AHS defense stopped the Wildcats’ final two drives with a strong pass rush that produced three quarterback sacks after the Wildcats drove to the AHS 25 in the final minute of the game.

“Our defense was phenomenal,’’ said AHS coach Sam Whitley after the Blue Comets defeated the Wildcats for the first time since the 1990 season.

“I called one blitz all night. We just lined up and let them play defense.


“I could have told you Monday that we were going to win this game,’’ Whitley added. “I could see it in their eyes. They were not going to be denied. They are hungry, they are tired of losing to Eastern Randolph and they were not going to be denied.”

They weren’t denied Friday night as the Blue Comets (3-0, 8-0) served notice on the opening drive that they belonged on the field with the Wildcats, who were ranked No. 1 among the state 3-A teams in one poll.

AHS took the opening drive and faced little resistence as they drove 82 yards in nine plays, getting a big 30-yard run from Tyrone Goldston before Champ Fonville capped it with a 1-yard TD run around the end. The PAT was no good and the Blue Comets had a quick 6-0 lead.

“We knew they would come out jacked up and sky high and we wanted to ride the wave,” said ER coach Burton Cates, whose team slipped to 2-1 and 7-1. “We thought we would play it a little better, though. We had numerous chances in the first half. We just didn’t make the plays when we needed to make them.”


The Wildcats did respond as they took their first drive, which started on the AHS 35 after a short kickoff and a 20-yard return from Jared Bowman.

Six plays later, quarterback Scott Riddle hit Michael Cheek with a perfectly executed screen pass and Cheek dashed 17 yards untouched. Miguel Uribe added the PAT for a 7-6 ER lead.

ER’s defense then took the game over as the Blue Comet offense failed to register a first down the rest of the half. But the AHS defense was up to the task as they stopped the Wildcats on the AHS 1-yard line early in the second quarter.

“We had to make some plays and we didn’t,” said Cates. “We have the ball inside the 1 and we go for it and we don’t pick it up. If you’re a real good football team, you pick it up. We didn’t play as well as we should but Asheboro had a lot to do with that.”

The Wildcats did tack on three points on their next drive as Uribe nailed a 28-yard field goal for a 10-6 lead.

AHS did have a great chance to take the lead at halftime after a 55-yard pass from Brewer to Tony Ratliff moved the ball to the ER 7, but after a gain to the 3, AHS was stuffed on two downs and then a field goal attempt was blocked.

AHS was able to move the ball in the second half, but AHS ran 11 plays inside the ER 5-yard line before finally scoring on Brewer’s run late in the game.

“It was pathetic,’’ said Whitley. “We could not get the ball inside the goal line. They knew what we were going to run and they stopped us.”

Until the game-winning drive.

AHS, which surrendered just 189 yards on defense the whole game, took over on its own 34 early in the fourth quarter. The Comets used a 15-yard run from Justin Butler on third down, a 32-yard pass play from Brewer to Duwan Alston and an incredible 23-yard catch and run play from A.J. Patterson on fourth-and-16 from the ER 27 to set up Brewer’s game-winning score.

“We probably threw more pass plays tonight than we had all season long,’’ said Whitley. “I called the game tonight to win it. I know what Blake can do and I know what our receivers can do.”

Brewer finished 8 of 13 for 171 yards as five different players caught passes.

On ER’s final possession senior John Leach recorded a pair of sacks, including one on fourth down which sealed the win.

“We knew they did a lot of passing and it was up to the D-line to get in the backfield and make him (Riddle) run around and let the DBs do their work,’’ said senior Zach Chilton, who was in the ER backfield all game. “We just beat Eastern Randolph. We just beat the number one team in the state.”

Now everyone must believe.

 

Anyone have the South Columbus vs Pender score?

 

Crest 50 North Gaston 27

This game was not that close. Crest could of put 70 on the board and Coach Kirby was hot about the performance. To many mental mistakes for Crest.

Crest was up 44-8 when he pulled the starters. The starting defense had held North Gastons offense to about 100 yrds of offense through 3 qtrs and 8 points. North Gaston came into the game averaging 397 yrds and 44 points per game. North Gaston started moving the ball with scary ease in the 4th vs some Crest JV's getting some playing time thanks to the 8 qtr rule. North Gaston scored 19 straight points in the first 6 or 7 minutes of the 4th qtr. The Crest offense wasn't hitting on much with JV's taking on Norths starters. The game got down to 44-27 with about 6:30 to go. Crest was able to recover the onside kick attempt by NG, and Crest put some Varsity o-linemen back in to help run out the clock. JV RB was able to get into the open for the final score making it 50-27.

The game took a looooong time to finish, and I started to worry with the ease that North Gaston was scoring in the 4th. They still had a huge crowd at the time and they started getting fired up again. This North Gaston squad may be one to watch in the 3A playoffs.

Jordan Robinson for Crest passed for around 230 making him, I believe, the all-time leading passer at Crest.

Stanley Humphries had 80 yrds rec.

Tosh Toms went for around 150.

The Crest offense had over 500 yrds of offense and the defense was stout, but penalites hurt Crest, around 175 yrds. Crest also moved inside NG's 20 3 other times and only came away with a FG.

The Crest defense has given up 7 points total, to Shelby, this year in the 3rd qtr.

 

Shelby 49 Kings Mtn. 14

The most amazing stat in this one is that the Shelby defense scored 5 TD's. Shelby appears to be fine tuning for another long playoff run.

 

Burns 29 RS Central 15

Lance Camp rushed 117 and passed for 126 as Burns got an important win over RS Central. Burns, RS, and Kings Mtn are the 3A in the Southwestern 2A/3A and with this win and a win over Kings Mtn in the final game of the regular season, they secure the top 3A seed out of the con. Burns is now 5-3.

 

• hickory13 achs7 i have a ? , who books the refs in football??!!does this person not know that hhs and ac is a big rival game?? he sends the worst crew in western nc to do the game. the head ref was so old ,that i think he would just throw a flag to get some rest. ac had 2 td called back because of phantom calls! head ref would blow a play dead as soon as a runner is wrapped up then later he would let hickory pile on the ac guys! anyway, time to regroup and go to freedom.

 

The more people you talk to, the more you hear about the ref's. I know it's a tough job, but there are some bad ones. I was talking to some that were at the Ashbrook/East Gaston and they were saying the same thing. It's like the game is to fast for them. Crest plays Country Day with some of the best officials that we have see this year and there was a total of like 54 yrds between the 2 teams. There in the right positions to make the calls and they didn't let themselves get taken out of the play. This week in the Crest/North Gaston game you have over 300 yrds penalties and they seem to lag behind the plays. Crest had a punt return for a TD that was called back, the reason, by the head ref. "Crest was blocking more than 30 yrds down field." That was his quote. I know that Coach Kirby has sent some plays to Chapel Hill and they said that the calls were wrong and that they didn't have an explanation as to why they made the calls they did. Again, this seems to be going on a lot of places.

I will say that there are some fine ref's out there as we saw in the Country Day game and that many will see in the playoffs, so to those gentlemen, keep up the great work.

 

The Watauga/McDowell game two friday's ago had some shaky officiating to say the least. I'm sure the Watauga folks would even agree with me on that.

One thing I have noticed this season that sticks out is how inconsistant the refs are when it comes to giving a player forward progress and when to blow the play dead. I've seen plays where a running back was being stopped by the entire defense, no whistles are blown and the runner takes a beating, granted the refs did get the correct spot it's amazing that no players get hurt in one of those pileups after forward progress is stop. I've also seen the other extreme where the refs blow a play dead, and then after the runner gets push back a couple yards the offense is given the spot in which the runner was being pushed back to.

 

Maybe that kicking coach isn't so bad down there at McDowell