By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — If you hadn’t been at Jack Groce Stadium on Oct. 14 and only saw that Hibriten controlled the football for 28:33 while Watauga had possession for just 19:27, you might suspect that the Panthers won a grinding high school football game. That would prove way off target as the Pioneers rolled to a 55-7 win over the visiting Panthers — and it wasn’t even that close.

Just about everyone in the stadium, or at least on the sidelines and in the press box, knew that Hibriten was going to be without at least seven starters, including not just the starting quarterback but the Panthers’ top backup. So the question of the night was: how deep is the Hibriten roster and could they keep up with what has emerged as Watauga’s multi-faceted offense.

Answer: a resounding “no.”

There were a number of big plays by the Pioneers in the first two quarters of the football game, perhaps none any more emblematic of the night than a second quarter series when Watauga already had a 34-0 lead, with just  1:34 remaining before intermission. A freshman quarterback thrust into a starting role, on 2nd-and-10 Hibriten’s Avin Crawford ran right on an apparent option play. He was hit at the line of scrimmage while attempting a pitchout to a halfback — and the ball instead flew awry and was plucked from the air by Pioneer junior linebacker Morgan Henry in stride, headed to the end zone. The Blowing Rock School alum outraced all defenders for a fumble recovery TD. With a successful PAT attempt by Grant Kight, the Pioneers had a commanding, 41-0 lead with 1:01 left before halftime.

Among the many regulations governing North Carolina high school football, one of them is a “mercy rule” that when any opponent is ahead by 42 points in the second half, the clock continues to run, without stopping, shortening what has become an onslaught. Following Henry’s fumble recovery TD and with just over a minute left on the clock in the opening half, Watauga was one point shy of the 42-point trigger. It appeared that the mercy rule would have to wait until the second half.

But after successive, incomplete passes by Hibriten on 2nd, 3rd and 4th downs, Watauga got the ball back its own 34-yard line with 10 seconds to go before the end of the second quarter. And that was just enough for senior running back Will Curtis to bounce out to the right side, wrestle free from a would-be tackler and sprint down the sideline 66 yards for yet another Pioneer TD. The score insured that the second half would be played with a running clock.

Without question, on this night the Pioneer defense took every advantage of its created opportunities. In addition to Henry’s fumble return for TD, defensive back Cole Horine had a “Pick 6” pass interception late in the first quarter. On 2nd and 10, the ball at Watauga’s 28-yard line, Hibriten’s Crawford spotted wide receiver Chase Trivette briefly open near the 15, but Horine jumped in front of it and sprinted right, turning upfield near the Panthers’ sideline and outraced all defenders the length of the field for the touchdown, putting Watauga ahead, 20-0.

Just a half minute ahead of Henry’s fumble recovery for TD, Horine capped off a big night with a 26-yard TD pass from sophomore QB Maddox Greene.

Noteworthy on the night was the unencumbered return of wingback Trey Thompson, who suffered an early season upper body injury. On a counter play off right tackle that he described later as his favorite play, Thompson shot through a gap opened up by the offensive line at the Panthers’ 22, broke into the second level and no one could catch him before crossing the goal line without a Hibriten player within 15 yards of him.

Offensively, Curtis carried the ball 13 times for the Pioneers, rolling up 125 yards rushing, including two more TDs, giving him 16 on the season while averaging more than 110 yards rushing per game for the eight contests so far in 2022. Thompson carried the seven times for 67 yards, including the TD scamper.

Greene mixed things up on the night, completing 3-of-5 passes for 56 yards through the air, including the Horine TD reception. Greene also rushed 7 times for 28 yards, getting the ball across the goal line once on the ground for a TD.

Knowing in advance that Hibriten might be shorthanded, Watauga head coach Ryan Habich said afterwards that it still had to be business as usual for his Pioneers.

“We played at our level. We talked about it, that they were shorthanded. They have a very dynamic quarterback that did not play and a backup quarterback-receiver that did not play, either. So they had some guys out,” said Habich. “I think we did a good job — not great — executing, but that is what we want to do. We want to give perfect effort regardless of the game circumstances, even when we have our backups in… (In a situation like this) you want to play your game. That’s how you get upset. You want to play at a high level, especially in that first half. If you get up, like we did, then you have a chance to play everyone on the sideline. In the second half with the clock running, we played a lot of guys.

“Our coaches are coaching them up, how to tackle, tackle low, not missing tackles, because we need to rely on those guys,” added Habich. “Things change in the course of a game. Sometimes you have starters that go out and you have new guys going in. We lost a few (offensive and defensive) backups that were playing on special teams, due to injury. We had to play a lot of guys tonight, and some of them in positions they hadn’t played or practiced in before. It is good to be able to play a lot of kids in a game like this. The important thing is that even with them having some guys out, we played at our level and did not make this a close game. We kept our foot on the gas pedal and going forward.”

Of Crawford, Hibriten’s freshman QB for the night, Habich had a lot of praise.

“I thought he did really good, getting thrown into the action after being pulled up from the JVs because the Hibriten QB had a high ankle sprain. He showed a lot of potential,” said Habich. “But our defensive line is pretty good with guys like Isaiah Shirley. We did a pretty good job against the option. Hibriten did a good job of keeping the ball away from us at times, but in the end we found ways to make plays.”

Habich had special praise for his defense.

“Cole Horine had the Pick 6. He read it good and taking it to the house was a big play. And Morgan Henry at outside linebacker, playing the option… Our guys were playing responsibility football. Whether starters or backups, they were in position to make plays. When your defense makes big plays like that, it helps out your offense, big time,” said Habich.

Isaiah Shirley becomes third Pioneer since 2016 to be selected for Shrine Bowl

Now in his 10th year as head coach of the Watauga program, Habich was quick to applaud the recent selection of Isaiah Shirley to play in the Carolinas’ Shrine Bowl Game.

“This makes the third player that Watauga has had in the Shrine Bowl since 2017,” said Habich, “after Josh Hedley in 2017 and Anderson Castle in 2019. I got to coach in the 2016 game and it is a special game. They take the top 44 players in North Carolina, so we feel very blessed to have a player selected.”

After the game, the NC State-committed Shirley told High Country Sports that he was honored, “But I am very thankful for my teammates and coaches who helped me develop. I am excited for the chance and think it will be fun.”

Two more Northwestern Conference matchups stand between Watauga and an undefeated league title, an Oct. 21, “Senior Night” home game against always dangerous Freedom and a road contest at regional rival Ashe County to close out the regular season on Oct. 28.

SELECTED TEAM STATS

• Total Offense – WAT 373, HIB 224
• Passing – WAT 3/5/56, HIB 6/18/70
• Rushing – WAT 35/317, HIB 29/154
• Penalties – WAT 5/55, HIB 5/30
• Turnovers – WAT 0, HIB 2
• Time of Possession – WAT 19:27, HIB 28:33
• 3rd Down Conversions – WAT 5/6 (83%), HIB 1/9 (11%)
• 4th Down Conversions – WAT 1/1 (100%), HIB 3/6 (40%)

SELECTED INDIVIDUAL STATS

Passing

• HIB Avin Crawford 6/18/70, 0 TDs, 1 INT
• WAT Maddox Greene 3/5/56, 1 TD, 0 INTs

Rushing

• WAT Will Curtis 13 carries, 125 yards, 2 TDs
• WAT Trey Thompson 7 carries, 57 yards, 1 TD
• HIB Gerard Felder 3 carries, 47 yards
• HIB Avin Crawford 7 carries, 40 yards
• WAT Eli Bailey 1 carry, 38 yards, 1 TD
• WAT Maddox Greene 7 carries, 28 yards, 1 TD
• HIB John Patterson 3 carries, 20 yards, 1 TD

Receiving

• WAT Jackson Pryor 2 catches, 30 yards
• HIB Bryce Horton 2 catches, 30 yards
• WAT Cole Horine 1 catch, 26 yards, 1 TD
• HIB Jake Absher 1 catch, 22 yards

WATAUGA’S INDIVIDUAL DEFENSIVE HIGHLIGHTS

• Carlton Horine 4 tackles
• Cole Horine 3 tackles, 1 tackle for loss, 1 INT
• Morgan Henry 2.5 tackles, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 1 fumble return for TD
• Jackson Pryor 2 tackles, 1 tackle for loss

By David Rogers. BOONE, N.C. — It was a chilly, mid-autumn night at Jack Groce Stadium on Oct. 13. There was no snow, but plenty of “flurries” in the second half of Watauga men’s soccer match against Freedom High School (Morganton) as the Pioneers scored six unanswered goals — most with less than 25 minutes remaining in the game — to win, 6-0.

Once the Patriots’ goalkeeper allowed a Noah Jamison shot to sail over his head into the back of the net a few minutes into the second half, it was game-on for the Pioneers. Keowen Arguello and Curtis Sevensky paced Watauga with a pair of goals each, but it was Jamison and Micah Duvall who started things off with a goal apiece. Three of the Pioneer goals came within five minutes of each other, midway through the half.

Between the two goalkeepers used by the Patriots, the Freedom statistician recorded 13 saves by the visitors’ keepers of shots on goal by the Pioneers.

Among the four assists was a rare one awarded to goalkeeper Kyle Painter to open the night’s scoring. He sent a long pass from inside his own penalty area downfield where it was quickly collected by Jamison and sent to the Freedom-defended net.

Commenting on that particular play, Watauga head coach Josh Honeycutt described the importance of distributing the ball effectively.

“That was huge. When we can rely on our keeper, center backs or outside backs to distribute the ball to get us into dangerous situations, then it gives us an advantage. It means we don’t always have to work the ball up through midfield, although we want to at times. We don’t always want to be a long ball team, but that was a great counterattack moment,” Honeycutt said.

Of the overall tenor of the match, Honeycutt stated what was obvious to the many Pioneer fans in the stands.

“It was a tale of two halves,” added Honeycutt. “In the first half, we weren’t quite crisp and sharp like we have been most of the week. It wasn’t bad soccer, it just wasn’t great soccer… Being the third game of the week, we might have been a little bit tired, so it was a slow start, not clean.”

Honeycutt was quick to point out the difference in second half play, after some minor adjustments.

“In the second half, we came out like gangbusters. Super crisp. Clean ball, making great passes, finding great opportunities and executing to put them away. The second half was a much better, family team effort than the first,” said Honeycutt.

After a rigorous non-conference schedule that saw the Pioneers up against some of North Carolina’s best 4A-level programs, when the results were much tighter and wins much harder to come by, Watauga is harvesting the fruit of that intentionally tougher scheduling.

“We’ve grown. We’ve come together as a team, realizing that we can play for one another and use each other to get a team win. And now that we are connecting, we are getting dangerous opportunities — and we are finishing. That is a observation because earlier in the year we struggled a bit to find the back of the net,” said Honeycutt.

“Our non-conference schedule was very difficult,” the now veteran coach continued. “We are talking about some of the best teams in the state, so obviously it is unlikely for us to score 6 goals, 8 goals, and such against those kind of teams. That prepared us for conference games.”

During the more competitive non-conference matches, Watauga seemed to control a lot of possession, but had trouble keeping it in the attacking third of the field, much less scoring.

“Yes, we are doing a better job of realizing that we can throw numbers in the box and still be OK, defensively. Early in the season there was a mentality that ‘These teams are good. They can score on us. So we need to be defensive.’  As a consequence, the opportunities that we got were one or two men trying to get take advantage of those opportunities in the attacking third. Now we are realizing that our defense is solid and we can play good team ball. So we can throw numbers in the box. We are going to get opportunities. They are going to be dangerous. We are going to finish them (by scoring goals) — but we are still going to be solid, defensively.”

Now 5-1 in conference play and 7-8 overall, Watauga is tied atop the 3A/4A Northwestern Conference standings with Hibriten, whose only loss came at the feet of the Pioneers. On Monday, Oct. 17, Watauga faces a rematch challenge with Alexander Central (3-2-1 in NWC, 4-6-3 overall), the only conference team to defeat the Pioneers in the 2022 campaign, a 3-0 decision at the Cougars’ campus on Sept. 28. The Pioneers will look to exact a measure of revenge on their Jack Groce home turf.

Watauga will close out the regular season with a pair of away games at Hibriten (Oct. 19, and looming as a potential decider of conference supremacy) and Freedom (Oct. 24) before the regular season finale at home against Ashe County (Oct. 26).

NORTHWESTERN CONFERENCE STANDINGS THRU REPORTED MATCHES, OCT. 13

1. Watauga (5-1 NWC, 7-8-1 overall)
2. Hibriten (5-1, 13-2-3)
3. Alexander Central (3-2-1, 4-6-3)
4. South Caldwell (3-3, 9-4-2)
5. Ashe County (0-4-2, 8-7-3)
6. Freedom (0-5-1, 5-9-2)

SLIDESHOW (All images credited to David Rogers)