High School Football Friday Night Finish:Greensboro Grimsley survives/thrives and the Whirlies advance, as our only Guilford County team left in the NCHSAA Football Playoffs

Final Score tonight from Greensboro’s Jamieson Stadium:Greensboro Grimsley 32, Kernersville Glenn 8

Tonight Grimsley not only survived, they thrived, behind the downhill running from senior back Quan Nora, and Greensboro Grimsley is the only Greensboro/Guilford County team that we have left in the 2019 NCHSAA Football Playoffs….

Greensboro Grimsley has moved on to Round Four of the playoffs, and the Whirlies will host East Forsyth next Friday night, for the 4-A West Regional Championship and the winner of that game will move on and play for the State Championship….

Greensboro Grimsley getting it done tonight to the tune of 266 yards rushing and 3 touchdowns from Quan Nora, their strong and explosive senior running back…Our stats here are from our associate Don Tilley, as Don had Nora with the 266 yards on 30 carries, while Joe Sirera, from the News and Record, had Nora with 265 yards on 31 carries…

The Player of the Game Award nod tonight goes to Nora and you have to give his offensive line a lot of credit too, with Max Baker, Nick McDonald, Coit Slack, Will Thornhill and Gryffyn Bowen getting those blocks and staying on those blocks, because by the time Quan Nora got the second level(Linebacker Stage), he was GONE!!! Three touchdowns on the night for Nora and two long runs for TD’s covering 68 and 79 yards….

Again, Nora taking the football all the way to “The House” and the assists up front for Baker, McDonald, Slack, Thornhill and Bowen…Also an assist for Lawson Albright, he was also leading that blocking when he was set up in his tight slot positions on the left and right side of the football…Plus you had Quentin Williamson coming in to help block from the backfield tonight and BIG Travis Shaw(6/6/320) was also in there at times, in the Grimsley “Jumbo Package” lending a hand to the Greensboro Grimsley lead blocking….

Nora took his game to another level tonight and his solid running allowed Grimsley to put away the Glenn Bobcats, who were missing their top running back, Monterious Godfrey, who only carried the ball a couple of times tonight/Friday, which is a far cry different from his usual 30 carries per game….

Glenn became a short-passing team in the first half and that led to the ‘Cats only touchdown of the game, a 10-yard pass from quarterback Camden Coleman to his receiver, Aronson Cook…

The Cook catch made the score 16-8 Grimsley, with just 30 seconds remaining before halftime, and the Whirlies took that 16-8 lead into the field house, as we hit the intermission of this high school football playoff game….

Just 16-8 Grimsley at halftime, but the second half was all Greensboro Grimsley….Glenn had zero first downs in the second half and ended up with less that five yards of Total Offense in the second half of our ballgame…Grimsley ended up out-scoring Glenn, 16-0 in half number two, and one of the Whirlies two TD’s came on a huge interception by junior linebacker Cam Allison…

Allison picked off a pass from Glenn Bobcats’ quarterback Camden Coleman, and Allison took it back all the way, for a Pick Six touchdown….Allison’s play was one of the biggest defensive plays of the night, and here is what Glenn coach Antwon Stevenson was telling the News and Record’s Joe Sirera about that big pick/INT: “The pick-six took the life out of us,” said Glenn coach Antwon Stevenson.

Grimsley’s offense was potent on Friday night with the two long runs by Nora, the 15-yard TD run by Nora, and the Pick Six by Allison, that all went for six points each, but what really got my attention was Grimsley going 4-4, on their two-point conversion attempts…Greensboro Grimsley attempted no extra point kicks, but they were perfect with the two-point conversion work…

You don’t see many teams going 4-4 on two-point tries…The opposition is surely going to stop you at least one time, but not tonight, Grimsley would not be stopped…

Two other big plays that come to my mind were #1, Lawson Albright snapped the football to the punter Myles Gowens, who got off a nice punt, but the real nice thing was that the long-snapper, Albright, was the man that got downfield and made the hit/tackle…That is impressive….The #2 mind-bender/extender was when Albright was in on another big play, where he hauled in a pass from Grimsley QB Chris Zellous and then Albright took the pass down the left side of the field, he made a spin move to get away from a couple of defenders, and then he broke a tackle getting on down the field, turning what might have been a five-yard play, into a bigger gain of 12-plus yards….Extra-effort and the refusal to go down were highly evident, in this play for Albright….

Extra effort was a big part of the Greensboro Grimsley game all night long….Whether it be Allison or Darryl Motley, who like Cam Allison, also had a big pick on defense, and the Motley INT., also thwarted/stopped a scoring drive by the Glenn Bobcats…

Greensboro Grimsley had players stepping up all night long…Nora was high-stepping his way to his three-touchdown, 266-yard night, then you had Allison, Motley, Albright, Shaw, Thompson, Price, Williamson, Burnette, and more Whirlies with the “Will to Win”….

We could start stamping out that list of those who were showing that “Whirlie Will to Win” and we could just keep on going….Senior QB Chris Zellous called and managed a great game tonight at quarterback for the Greensboro Grimsley Whirlies, and we gave a shout out to the Whirlies’ offensive line earlier and you can’t say enough about the job those guys did blocking and leading Quan Nora up the field, on his long runs…..

The Greensboro Grimsley Whirlies and let’s track a few more of their numbers on the night…..As a team, Grimsley ran the ball 43 times for 311 yards…That is solid, right there….Nora with the 30 carries for 266 yards and the three TD’s…Chris Zellous with the 45 yards on 13 carries…Zellous going 6-12 passing for 72 yards…Jaquavion Mayo with 2 receptions for 34 yards, Anthony Dunkins with 2 catches for 31 yards and Albright with the one pass reception for 12 yards….Zellous had a few of his passes that were dropped and should have been caught, and I know Christian Tutuh had at least two passes that he wishes he could have back, because he knows he could have caught them….

That just goes to show you how this game was going….Grimsley had so much, but they could have had more….Another thing we are saying is with a little tuning up, Grimsley could be even better, at what they are now doing during their “Mission of 2019″…

Back on some more of those Greensboro Grimsley numbers, Grimsley had 383 Total Yards of offense on the evening…We mentioned Glenn had zero first downs in the second half and less than five yards of total offense in that second half, while rushing for just one yard….

Glenn overall for the night shows QB Camden Coleman going 21-33 passing for 144 yards, with 1 touchdown and 2 INT’s….Aronson Cook had six receptions for 71 yards and he scored the Glenn Bobcats lone TD, on his pass reception from Coleman…Anthony Davis had three receptions for 31 yards for Glenn….

A quick recap of the scoring tells us that Grimsley scored first in the game, on Quan Nora’s 68-yard touchdown run…Sincere Burnette added the two-point conversion for Grimsley, on a pass reception from Chris Zellous…With 2:52 to go in the first quarter, Grimsley leads Glenn, 8-0…
End of First Quarter:Grimsley 8, Glenn 0

Nora’s at it again, this time on his 79-yard run from scrimmage and with this TD and the Zellous pass from Albright for two points, Greensboro Grimsley nows lead Glenn, 16-0…This Grimsley scoring surge came with 10:20 to go in the second quarter/period…

Glenn picked up their only points of the night with just 30 seconds remaining in the first half, when Camden Coleman hit Aronson Cook for that 10-yard touchdown pass and the two-point conversion run by Daniel Napper was good, making our score Grimsley 16, Glenn 8, and that is how she stood as we hit halftime, Greensboro Grimsley 16, Kernersville Glenn 8….
Halftime:Grimsley 16, Glenn 8

As we barely get into the third quarter, Cam Allison picks off that Glenn pass by Camden Coleman and he takes it back 45 yards for the touchdown….The two-point run by Chris Zellous is good and Grimsley now leads Glenn, 24-8, and we are at the 11:01 mark of the third quarter…
End of 3rd Quarter:Grimsley 24, Glenn 8

The last Grimsley touchdown comes from a young man we have been pleased to see hit the end zone already two times in this game and why not make it there, one more time…One mora time for Nora….One mora for Quan Nora…..And he it takes in this time from 15 yards out, and why not add in the two-point conversion for good measure and he does…The Greensboro Grimsley scoring comes with 9:17 left in the football game and Grimsley now leads Glenn, 32-8….Grimsley 4-4, on two-point conversions on the night….
Final Score:Greensboro Grimsley 32, Glenn 8

Grimsley wins 32-8 to go to (12-1) on the season and Glenn closes out their year/season at (9-5)….

#1 Greensboro Grimsley(12-1) will now face #2 Kernersville East Forsyth(11-2) for the NCHSAA 4-A West Regional Championship/Title, next Friday night December 6, at 7:30pm at Jamieson Stadium…

East Forsyth defeated Jamestown Ragsdale 34-21 this Friday night at Fred Lewis Stadium, in Kernersville….

Grimsley lost to East Forsyth back on October 4, 21-20 in a game that was played in front of very large crowd at Jamieson Stadium, on the Greensboro Grimsley High School campus….It was said here at this site back in mid-July that this could be, “The Year of the Whirlies”….It’s still 2019 and the Greensboro Grimsley Whirlies are very close to making that statement stand out….

One more time as we close out this edition of the Friday Night Finish….A heck of a job tonight by Grimsley’s Quan Nora, with his 266 yards rushing, on 30 carries with 3 touchdowns, he added a two-point conversion run and he played some on defense, at linebacker, for good measure…..And one more time a shout out, for that Whirlie front five that moved the sled in the Spring, Summer and Fall and now that work is paying off here in late Autumn of 2019….Baker, McDonald, Slack, Thornhill and Bowen, making room for mora from Nora…..

**********East Forsyth at Grimsley, the only game in town, next Friday night and this will be the only game in our two-county area, of Guilford and Forsyth counties…..**********

3 thoughts on “High School Football Friday Night Finish:Greensboro Grimsley survives/thrives and the Whirlies advance, as our only Guilford County team left in the NCHSAA Football Playoffs

  1. It should also be noted that we could have easily scored one last TD to end the game but coach took a knee. Save that one for next week.

  2. This is true…On that last series, Grimsley had the ball inside the Glenn five yard-line and had plenty of time to punch it in for the score, but the Whirlies knew they had all the points they needed and showed true sportsmanship by letting the clock run on out…Good point there…

    One of the more interesting plays of the game, that came back to my memory this morning was, when Grimsley lined big Travis Shaw(6’6/320) up at wide receiver on the right side of the field….And Travis was Wayyy out there wide on the right side of the field…

    Travis looked like Kellen Winslow the III, IV and V out there….

    Grimsley showed this “Super-Wide” formation briefly, and then they called timeout and reset the play…….

    Maybe the Whirlies will save the “Wide Draw to Shaw” for later in the playoffs….

    (I’ll take that “Wide Draw to Shaw”, and can I get that with slaw???)….NAW!!!!!

  3. 1st let me say East Forsyth is not Glenn! The Eagles are always playing their best ball in November and December. People have been talking about not having Marshall & rumor on the street is Marshall and Crowell both 4 stars at East are both going to be back this week.

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