Saturday morning HS Football Rewind

Paul Lambeth has the Southeast Guilford Falcons marching over the Southwest Guilford Cowboys covered and last night Keith Tolbert of the News and Record told that me Paul has these games covered better than a thin sheet on a cheap mattress, so I will not touch that one.

We had the scores on NEG/EG up here last night for you and we also got word out of Jamestown from Big Jim on the Ragsdale/NWG contest and had that update on the site for you too, before 10pm.

Here’s what Sheldon is saying about the Eastern Guilford Wildcats first win over NEG in sixteen years:
What do yall have 2 say about EG this year. it took us 16 years but we finally got NE last night and it was mainly because of defense which eastern hasnt had in a long time. cant wait 2 see how the rest of this year pans out.

Mark had a take on the Ragsdale/NWG ball game:
Excellent ball game in Jamestown last night. Lots of big play scores and two late defensive stands by Ragsdale. Two weeks in a row the Tigers had to suck it up and come from behind in the fourth quarter. Those are the kind of wins you love to see.

If the rest of you have more I would like to see it, because I didn’t have anything on Ragsdale/NWG in my morning N&R.

The win by Eastern Guilford was huge and we hope to have Coach Scott Loosmore on our Football in Focus Show next Thursday night. Thanks to everyone who showed up last night at Shane’s Rib Shack on Westover Terrace, including Rusty Lee AD Page HS, Tom Keller News and Record, Coach Mark Saunders from Grimsley with OL/DL Jordan Patterson and QB Josh Patterson. We were also joined by QB Will Newman from Page HS and by the Page Pirate kicker Matt Milisor. They all did a great job and you can watch last night’s show when you click on Broadcast here at the site.

Doug Cockman laid out the college football game plan and Jim Modlin got us ready for the NFL.

Eastern Guilford, led by RB Gerrod Herbin and QB Jason Davis, is (3-0) for the first time since Scott Youmans was snapping the ball for the ‘Cats and with Western coming up next, EG is a major threat to start off 2008 at (4-0). EG (led by Herbin with his 123 yards), rushed the ball for 259 total yards against the NEG Rams. I can’t remember the last time NEG started off the season at (0-2).

Standing on the field at EG after the game last night, I couldn’t believe all the energy that is surrounding this football program right now.

EG is playing with heart, pride, and discipline(Coach Loosemore quote from KT in the N&R) and I would love to see them go ahead and play Southern Guilford this Sunday, to see who the top 2-A team will really be here in Guilford County this season. Southern saved their day and mine last night with their 27-20 win over Trinity.

With the SG win, my picks record went to (9-0) this week and for the season it now stands at (26-4). The big deal though is the win by the Storm and how can you count out a team called the Storm smack dab in the middle of the hurricane season? In reality, this is football season and Southern is off to another fine start at (3-0). EG (3-0) and SG (3-0), but can either one of them beat Reidsville? We will find out in a couple of weeks.

SG was led last night by Scotty Wayne and his 72 yards on 9 carries and he scored one touchdown, and then Warren Scott had TD runs of 23 and 13 and QB Darren Garcia made his usual contribution with a three yard run for a score. As a team, Southern rushed the ball for 262 yards.

Key games coming up next week include:
Ragsdale at Page
Eastern Guilford at Western Guilford
Southern at Southeast
and the long-time rival game with Smith at Dudley

Here’s Lee with the Ragsdale/NWG summary and we thank him for sending it our way at GREENSBOROSports.com:
I’ll try to give a summary of the game since it doesn’t seem to be in the paper this am. I may be off on a few details but I’ll do the best I can. Forgive me if I leave someone out or get a name wrong.

Exciting game between NW and Ragsdale as the score went back and forth all night. NW played well and won both sides of the line of scrimmage most of the night. Both NW lines were big and physical. The game started fast as Ragsdale held NW on their opening possession and forced a punt. The NW snap was either a hair low or was miss-handled and the NW punter was unable to get the punt off and Ragsdale sacked the punter on the 13. 3 plays did not yield a 1st down as the NW defense held and forced Ragsdale to kick a short field goal by Redfern.

NW then took the ball 80 yards after a touchback kick by Redfern. The NW line opened big holes as they were much bigger and physical. A 2 point conversion was successful and it was 8-3. Ragsdale got the ball back and in very short order Charles Thomason ran one in from approx. 60 yards. 2 point conversion failed and it was 9-8. Soon after NW moved easily down the field as a normally strong Ragsdale D had no answer for the large NW O-line. Another 2 point conversion was successful and it was 16-8. Kennedy and 2 others including the fullback were running well for NW. Again Ragsdale came back quickly after a NW fumble as Romer found Ced Miller and a nice out and up for approx. a 50 yard scoring pass shortly before the half. While the score was tied, both Ragsdale TD drives were approx. 1 play drives. Of the 24 minutes in the 1st half the NW offense kept the Ragsdale D on the field for 19 of those minutes. This would take its toll in the 2nd half.

NW wasted little time going up 24-16 in the 2nd half. Ragsdale simply could not stop the push the NW O-line was getting as they opened huge holes. After the game one of the Ragsdale players said “it was like we had skates on. We were just rolling backwards.” After only 3 1st downs in the 2nd half, Ragsdale came back with a drive with Romer stepping up in the pocket with a NW blitz on and found Ced Miller crossing in the center of the field for about a 25 TD completion. While Romer did not have his best stuff, he stepped up in crucial situations and completed passes to keep the drive alive and found Miller twice after avoiding a heavy rush. 2 point conversion failed and NW remained ahead 24-22.

NW came right back at Ragsdale with their ground attack as the Ragsdale D was obviously tired. Having only 3 LBers for the game and 1 reserve DB led to a tired defense (the defense definitely missed DB’s Anderson and Austin). However penalties and a key stop slowed the NW offense enough to force a punt. Ragsdale took over and put together a nice drive and 2 point conversion to take a 30-24 lead with about 8 minutes remaining. D’Onavon Smith ran one in from about 12 yards following a great block by Ed Ross. Once again NW took off down the field with their ground game but penalties slowed them and the Ragsdale D held as NW went for it on 4th down from deep in Ragsdale territory. Ragsdale took over on downs but 2 penalties backed them up and Ragsdale was forced to punt from deep in the end zone. NW took over on about the Ragsdale 35 but NW was stopped again and NW had to punt which rolled in to the end zone for a touchback. Ragsdale could not move the ball and was forced to punt again from deep in their end zone. NW took over deep in Ragsdale territory with just over 2 minutes left and no timeouts. The ground game quickly moved the ball down to the Ragsdale 6 with about 1 minute to go. An illegal shift penalty backed up NW and NW tried 2 pass plays with one falling incomplete and another was tipped by a Ragsdale defender.

This game was well played by both teams, NW has an excellent team and a case could easily be made that NW deserved to win the game. Not sure anyone deserved to lose this game. NW moved the ball almost at will. A few penalties and a couple of key stops by Ragsdale were the only things to slow NW. Ragsdale did win the turnover battle with a fumble recovery and the fumbled punt snap by NW. The Ragsdale offense stepped up with some key pass plays and one long drive late to keep the defense off the field. I have not seen all the stats but I’m pretty sure NW outgained Ragsdale. I was really surprised to see the Ragsdale defensive front 7 get moved around. Everyone knew NW had a great O-line but they looked even better last night. Kennedy is the real deal. Very fast and a strong runner for his size.

NW looked different than in the film Ragsdale studied. The running game was better than advertised and more creative. After scouting the NW trick play on 2 point conversions NW still was able to successfully execute the play. One thing Ragsdale did pick up on was the NW LBers like to jump in and out of the gaps. Ragsdale coaching staff saw this went with longer snap counts and was able to get NW to jump offsides 5-6 times.

2 thoughts on “Saturday morning HS Football Rewind

  1. good summary Lee. I did a writeup on NCPreps and TBR – should have posted it here too. One thing that stuck in my mind is that not only did Ragsdale have to score late in the last two games to go ahead they had to make game saving defensive stops in their own end zone to preserve the win. You could really tell the linebackers were gassed last night. But showed a lot of character when they played the plays when they counted.

    As for the lack of info in the N&R – I wonder who was sending game summaries and stats into the paper last year – so far this year there is not much more than a score posted in the paper – no box score, no stats – nothing. Somebody connected with the school/team needs to get on the ball. I try and keep some stats but nothing official to send to the paper. I guess we’ll have to be content with these summaries here and Mike Ellis’ writeup next week in the Jamestown News.

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