By David Rogers. ASHEVILLE, N.C. — There was a little bit of everything football on Sept. 8, when Watauga took on A.C. Reynolds. There was even a smattering of “big play” defense in the Pioneers’ 36-35 win over the host Rockets.
BONUS PHOTOS AT BOTTOM OF ARTICLE ( click any image for slide show mode)
The first half saw the two 828 area code rivals battle toe-to-toe, the score knotted at 22-22 when the second quarter’s end invited the teams to intermission.
Watauga and AC Reynolds used different approaches in reaching identical first half point totals. The very athletic Rockets relied largely on the passing arm of senior quarterback Hayden Craig and a pair of talented receivers, sophomore WR Tyvon Patterson and senior Ty Johnson, picking up large chunks of gridrion real estate through the air.
In countering the sheer advantage that ACR had in athleticism, the Pioneers rolled out an element of surprise with two trick plays in the first half. Early in the second quarter, after Watauga had established the run as offensive play of choice, it was a “hook and ladder” down the left side with quarterback Maddox Greene passing to senior wide receiver Jackson Pryor short, who then lateraled to the trailing running back, Everett Gryder, coming around the outside and down the sideline. The play was good for 31 yards, Gryder hauled down just short of the goal line. Two plays later, Greene hit tight end Trathan Gragg in the end zone for a touchdown and Greene ran in a 2-point conversion to give the visitors a 15-7 lead.
The other Pioneer skullduggery came in the form of a double pass, the second leg of which found Pryor cruising into the end zone.
In the second half, after a long offensive drive culminating with a 10-yard Greene run and a Jack Wilson PAT kick put Watauga ahead, 29-22, the Pioneer defense held and forced the Rockets to punt. This gave the Pioneers a chance to put the game further out of reach with another score, but instead a fumble by Gryder in front of the Rockets’ bench near midfield gave the ball back to Reynolds. It only took ACR’s Craig, Patterson, Johnson & Co. four plays to cover the 46 yards for a TD, the finishing effort a Craig-to-Johnson aerial for 30 yards. With a Rossi Santelia PAT kick, the score was back to knotted, 29-29.
The Pioneers didn’t waste any time, starting the drive on their own 28 and going the distance in just six plays. On 2nd-and-9 from the Rockets’ 36, came one of the evening’s most dramatic plays. Greene rolled left on a designed run but before he reached the line of scrimmage spotted Evan Burroughs all by himself in the end zone (see photos above).
“I was supposed to keep running outside,”said Greene of his team’s final TD of the evening, but I looked up and saw Evan. It was totally impromptu.”
His opportunistic decision to loft a perfect spiral into the waiting arms of his sophomore teammate, along with another successful PAT kick by Wilson, gave the Pioneers the points they needed.
But A C Reynolds did not go quietly into the night. To start the fourth quarter, Watauga stopped the Rockets, who picked up some yardage but then failed on a fourth down conversion after getting all the way to the Watauga 20.
Two penalties, a false start and an illegal motion flag, were too much for the Pioneers to overcome and they were forced to punt the ball back to ACR, deep in Pioneer territory.
As a consequence, the Rockets enjoyed good field position, starting their final drive inside of five minutes remaining from their own 42. Craig clicked off successive passes of 12, 16, and 17 yards, then with just two carries Patterson went the remaining 12 yards to make the score, 36-35.
It was decision time for the Mean Green Machine, but there was little doubt that they would go for the 2-point conversion for a probable win the way they had been moving the ball both on the ground and through the air.
Interviewed after the game, Watauga’s Evan Burroughs told High Country Sports, “I was on the field, on defense, for that 2-point conversion attempt. During the timeout, Trathan Gragg came running up all excited and said, ‘I know what play they will run! I know what play they will run!’ I’ll be darned if he wasn’t right and he closed that gap to tackle the running back behind the line of scrimmage.”
Gragg followed up by saying, “They had run that play with success the whole night. During the timeout I spoke with our assistant coach and told him what I thought and he said, ‘Go for it!’ I guess you would call it instinct.”
It was obvious that Watauga was milking the clock on the Pioneers’ final possession, Greene waiting until less than four seconds remaining on the play clock before snapping the ball. But on 4th-and-5, just across midfield with still two minutes remaining, the Pioneers needed a first down. Get it and ice the game. Fail, and give the high-powered Rockets’ offense one last shot at carving out a win.
Greene got the first down with a couple of yards to spare, passing the ball to his “Mr. Reliable” wide receiver, Pryor, for a gain of eight yards. With no more timeouts, the Rockets could not stop the clock as the Pioneers went into victory formation.
Known as much for his running the option ground game, Greene passed on this night for 221 yards and four TDs, completing 12-of-13 passes. He also carried the ball eight times for 40 yards, including a TD.
Burroughs caught four passes for 74 yards and two TDs, while Gryder carried the ball 21 times for 130 yards.
Pryor caught five passes for 90 yards and one TD, the langest pass his game-opening 31-yarder. Including an acrobatic run around the left side, wingback Morgan Henry caught one pass for 37 yards and carried the ball four times for 18 yards. Gragg caught just two passes for 25 yards, but one of those was the 15-yard TD aerial in the first half.
For the Rockets, Craig completed 17-of-20 passes for 219 yards and a TD, plus a rushing touchdown. Wide receiver Ty Johnson caught six passes for 107 yards and two TDs. Running back Patterson ran 19 times, rolling up 78 yards and accounted for two TDs.
SOUND BITES
Watauga hea coach Ryan Habich
- “We lost a lot of seniors from last year so we have a lot of young kids this year. But we have a good bunch of seniors this year who are leading by example in Jackson Pryor, Morgan Henry, Eli Greene… and they are developing into vocal leaders, too. Plus we have a bunch of younger players who are making big time plays.”
- “We challenged our guys to be the champions of the 828 area code. Reynolds has been the ‘Alabama’ of this area code for a number of years. They have been a dynasty in this area. Few teams wanted to play them. We knew going in that we would be big underdogs to A C Reynolds, but I challenged the guys to make it a fourth quarter game and we could win. And they did that.”
- Regarding defense: “That was a very good team that we faced. They are very athletic and they have a lot of quality depth (at every position). A lot of our guys are going both ways, so by the second half we were getting a bit tired while they were (platooning different guys on offense and defense). Again, they are very athletic and that hurts us on the edge. We made stops when we could.”
- “It seemed like every time we did an onside kick we were able to stop them, but if we kicked off deep they would end up scoring.”
- “We have to roll the dice a little bit when we play big time teams like this. We have to find a way to win.”
- “If we can get into the fourth quarter and still in it, I feel we have a chance to win the game because that is the kind of character we have in our players.”
- “I told our kids after the coin toss that we were going to play to win, that we were going to onside kick the first kickoff. We were not going to play close. We were going to play to win. They did a great job. This was a big time win for us.”
- On the last fourth down conversion: “Pick the first down up and win the game. We are an aggressive football team. We are not going to punt the ball and let them return it or have one or more large runs. We tried to draw them offsides, but ultimately we had a lot of confidence in our quarterback and wide receiver. I told Maddox and Pryor, ‘Big time players make big time plays in big time games.'”
Watauga now improves to 4-0 on the still young season, with one more non-conference road game at North Davidson (Sept. 15) ahead of a bye week before opening conference play on Sept. 29 vs. South Caldwell.
BONUS PHOTOS
