By David Rogers. TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. — Before the Oct. 18 high school football game between Watauga and Alexander Central, the visiting Pioneers harbored a lot of uncertainty about how they would play after a month-long layoff induced by Hurricane Helene. After spoiling the host Cougars’ Homecoming with a convincing, 49-21 win, most of the doubts about how Watauga would respond to adversity evaporated.
On a clear, autumn night down the mountain in Taylorsville, Watauga showed little rust. Rolling up almost 600 yards (592) of total offense, the Pioneers scored in six different ways and proved to be an 8-headed offensive juggernaut. Defensively, not only did they neutralize Alexander Central’s rushing playmakers and limit their hosts to just 206 yards of total offense, but Watauga poached (two INTs) — as many Cougar passes as ACHS quarterback Wade Queen completed on the night.
A week ago, Alexander Central used a powerful rushing attack to record a come-from-behind, 30-20 win over a strong Freedom squad. After the game, Pioneer head coach Ryan Habich revealed a couple of key personnel changes to counter the Cougars’ rushing attack, moving Dillon Zaragoza and Nyle Peays closer to the line of scrimmage as linebackers and rotating Maddox Greene back to more of a safety position on defense. He credited the defensive coaches led by coordinator Dustin Kerley for effectively designing and implementing the plans.
Greene, of course, saw double duty as the Pioneers’ senior signal caller and his offensive leadership was clearly on display. Watauga controlled possession of the football for 30:08, keeping the pigskin out of Alexander Central’s hands for all but 17:52. Greene carried the ball 20 times for 187 net yards and two TDs and completed 10-of-12 passes for 161 yards, including two long aerials of 47 and 32 yards, to wide receiver Landon Smith.
After Watauga’s defense limited the Cougars to “three and outs” on both of the hosts’ first quarter possessions and the Pioneers’ offense responded by mounting consecutive scoring drives to put the visitors ahead, 14-0, Alexander Central looked to get in the scoring column and narrow the deficit early in the second quarter.
But nothing went right. An offside penalty on first down set the Cougars back 5 yards. A keeper by Queen lost a yard. On second down, a QB hurry by the Pioneers’ Luke Edmisten forced an incomplete pass. Then a Queen pass toward the left sideline was intercepted by Greene, giving Watauga possession again at the the ACHS 40-yard line.
The ensuing drive by the Pioneers proved to be a defining series for the night in how they handled adversity. First down runs by Greene and Zaragoza were offset by consecutive penalties, an illegal block and then a personal foul, knocking them back to the 44-yard line. Opening up the playbook on 3rd-and-24, backup QB Cade Keller took the reins and moved Greene to a running back position. Keller rifled a short pass left to Greene, who darted this way and that, gaining just over half of the necessary yards for a first down, but the Pioneers still faced 4th-and-11, on the ACHS 31.
Opening up the playbook a little further, the Pioneers decided “to go for it” rather than punt or try what would have been close to a 50-yard field goal attempt by kicker Jack Wilson. Instead, with three receivers right, Greene passed quickly to Evan Burroughs near the line of scrimmage for an apparent screen pass — with a Cougar defender bearing down on Burroughs for an almost certain stop. But the versatile Burroughs caught the ball first, then quickly flipped it to running back Everett Gryder looping around the outside and down the sideline for the needed 11 yards and a first down. Two plays later, Gryder carried the ball around the left side, weaving his way to the end zone for a 14-yard TD run.
If the pass interception hadn’t taken the wind out of Alexander Central’s proverbial sails, Watauga’s razzle-dazzle and 8-play TD-scoring series that took 3:36 off the clock certainly put them in a big hole at 21-0.
The Cougars were down, but not yet beaten. They rallied for a TD-scoring drive that kept Watauga’s offense off the field for 4:31. The possession featured the kind of three- to five-yard runs by junior running backs Sawyer Chapman-Mays and Jeremiah Whitaker to collect chunks of real estate that Habich and his defensive coaches expected. The rushes were bookended by successful Queen passes to fellow senior wide receiver Garrison Millsaps of 7 and 15 yards. The latter was a left-to-right slant across the middle that found Millsaps wide open, and probably would have scored had it not been for a saving tackle by Peays at the Pioneer 13-yard line. Whitaker ran through Watauga’s defense on the next play, shoved out of bounds a yard short of the left pylon and Chapman-Mays punched it in from there. With the Cory Mays PAT kick, the commanding, 9-play sequence gave the Cougar faithful hope that another comeback win might be in the offing.
If only Alexander Central could have stopped Watauga and continued to replicate the mostly error-free performance of that scoring drive.
But they couldn’t. It took the Greene-led Pioneers just 3 plays to cover 65 yards, in just 41 seconds. A Greene keeper picked up 9 yards and a short pass to Burroughs collected another nine before Greene found wide receiver Landon Smith behind a pair of Cougar defenders, hitting the tall, speedy senior (who competes in track and field as a sprinter and high jumper) in stride for a 47-yard TD.
And the first half misfortunes continued for Alexander Central, when on their first play from scrimmage after the Smith TD, Queen’s pass was intercepted by Watauga senior Zaragoza, giving the ball back to the Pioneers with a short field ahead of them from the ACHS 43.
As if rewarding Zaragoza for his brilliant defensive gem, Greene hit him on the first play of the new offensive possession with a pass for a 15-yard pickup, but with time ticking down on the first half, Watauga’s drive stalled at the Cougar 7-yard line with 6 seconds left. On 4th-and-1, Habich elected to give his brilliant placekicker, Jack Wilson, a field goal opportunity. From 23 yards out, the kick sailed just outside the left upright, the lengthy Homecoming intermission starting with Boone boys sporting a 28-7 lead.
Important to note: Wilson just missed his one field goal attempt, but was a perfect 7-for-7 on PAT kicks.
In the second half, Alexander Central was able to put two more impressive scoring drives together, again featuring the Whitaker and Chapman-Mays combination, but the Cougars’ defense simply couldn’t stop Watauga’s offense. Greene capped the Pioneers’ opening possession of the half with another 32-yard TD pass to Smith after more than four minutes had evaporated from the game clock.
Alexander Central responded with another TD, but their grinding, ball-control rushing attack took another 4:31 off the clock. While the Cougars were demonstrating that they could move the football, they weren’t doing themselves any favors with the clock quickly closing the window of opportunities — and the home team’s inability to stop the Pioneer offense.
After Greene closed out the end of the third quarter and opened the final stanza with his second TD run, Alexander Central’s next possession stalled with incomplete passes and a QB sack, turning the ball over on downs at the Watauga 36-yard line.
That’s where Keller took the reins of the Pioneer offense, the junior and probable starter next season efficiently picking up where Greene left off — including finishing off the possession with crafty, 32-yard run to paydirt and making the score an insurmountable, 49-14.
At this point, Watauga was playing a lot of younger reserves on both sides of the ball, giving them valuable playing time to provide positional depth as the season heads toward the state playoffs next month. Alexander Central’s Whitaker took advantage, breaking free for a 75-yard TD romp down the right sideline, virtually untouched, for the home team’s final points (Watauga 49, Alexander Central 21).
Keller & Co. responded with a display of good sportsmanship. After the junior QB rushed 55 yards and was shoved into the ground late, out of bounds, by a Cougar defender, the personal foul gave the Pioneers a first down at the ACHS 5-yard line with just over a minute remaining in the game. Keller promptly got his offense in victory formation and kneeled down twice, running out the clock and not trying for the almost certain extra points.
Now 6-0 and in what has become an unusual, reconfigured Northwestern Conference schedule, Watauga is next slated to host Hibriten at Jack Groce Stadium on Oct. 25, then Freedom on Nov. 1 for the last regular season home game. They will have played three games in the space of eight days when they travel to Ashe County on Tuesday, Nov. 5, then to South Caldwell on Nov. 8 to complete Northwestern Conference play and await any playoffs’ seeding.
SELECTED TEAM STATS
- First Downs: WAT 27, AC 10
- Net Yards Rushing: WAT 400, AC 184
- Net Yards Passing: WAT 192, AC 22
- TOTAL OFFENSE: WAT 592, AC 206
- Turnovers
- Fumbles-Lost: WAT 1-0, AC 1-0
- Pass Interceptions: WAT 0, AC 2
- Time of Possession: WAT 30:08, AC 17:52
- 3rd Down Conversions: WAT 7-of-11, AC 4-of-8
- 4th Down Conversions: WAT 3-of-3, AC 0-of-1
- Penalties-Yards: WAT 6-50, AC 3-26
SELECTED INDIVIDUAL STATS
Passing
- WAT – Maddox Greene, 10-of-12, 161 yards, 2 TDs
- WAT – Cade Keller, 4-of-4, 31 yards
- AC – Wade Queen, 2-of-10, 22 yards
Receiving
- WAT – Landon Smith, 3-84, 2 TDs
- WAT – Evan Burroughs, 6-38
- AC – Garrison Millsaps, 2-22
- WAT – Dillon Zaragoza, 2-18
- WAT – Matthew Habich, 1-14
- WAT – Maddox Greene, 1-13
- WAT – Matthew Leon, 1-10
Rushing
- WAT – Maddox Greene, 20 carries, 187 net yards, 2 TDs
- AC – Jeremiah Whitaker, 10-112-1
- WAT – Cade Keller, 4-95-1
- WAT – Matthew Leon, 11-51
- AC – Sawyer Chapman-Mays, 10-46-2
- WAT – Everett Gryder, 8-40-1
- AC – Wade Queen, 4-17
- WAT – Evan Burroughs, 5-16-1
- WAT – Dillon Zaragoza, 1-14
