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Defense, both R-S Central and Thomas Jefferson had it last Friday as they notched huge victories in a big weekend of conference football.
R-S Central and Matt Atchley’s overtime rushing touchdown gave R-S Central (5-3, 3-2) its biggest win of the year on the gridiron in a 21-14 outlasting of a fairly strong Kings Mountain (6-3, 3-3) team last week. The Mountaineers had averaged 30 points per game this season, but R-S Central turned them away a number of times last Friday to prevail in the extra session.
The only drawback for the Hilltoppers came by putting the ball on the ground twice in key situations, but Juwan Watkins, Tyrese Tate also scored rushing touchdowns on the night for Central. R-S Central helped their chances of making the playoffs with that win. They will host East Burke on Friday (10/24) and still have three games left to put themselves in the postseason and better their seed.
In Avondale, Mason Martin crossed the goal line twice and once again, Thomas Jefferson slid past another opponent on the season. Last week, they defeated Community School of Davidson 14-12 at home. Right now, The Gryphons are only allowing 17 points per game in league play, while the visiting Yellow Jackets are scoring 48 points per contest in league play. So naturally, something has to give this Friday.
The game of the week has to be at Thomas Jefferson (6-2, 2-0), who could further a solid grasp on their first Southern Piedmont 1A Conference title. However, Bessemer City (6-2, 2-0) stands in the way this Friday (10/24) at home. Honing in on Cedric Mackey will be the job of the Gryphons defense as Mackey has run for nearly 900 yards this season.
East Rutherford (4-4, 2-3) keeps their playoff hopes alive as they downed Draughn this past week fairly easily, 35-12. Kameron Garrison, D.J. Miller, Saibyn Ruff and Calvin Camp each had rushing touchdowns, while camp added a nifty punt for the other score of the night. Don’t forget, on Halloween night (10/31/14) East Rutherford will host R-S Central. Before that can happen, the Cavaliers must first travel a short distance to Crest (8-0, 5-0), who has been averaging a winning margin of 35.6 points per game this season.
Chase (1-7, 0-5) will be back in action following the bye against Kings Mountain at home.
Meanwhile, traveling south of the border in Chesnee, the Golden Eagles find themselves 7-1, 4-0. Chesnee has now won seven straight after coming back to beat Powdersville 26-14 last week at home. Chesnee nabbed three second half interceptions and J.J. Kane scored a touchdown on one of those Powedersville picked off passes. Chesnee will go to Blacksburg this coming Friday.
Boys Soccer
If Thomas Jefferson beats Community School of Davidson on October 20, then they should win the 1A Southern Piedmont Conference. They would follow that up with a meeting at home against winless Cherryville before the playoffs begin.
Both Chase (13-3-1, 12-2) and R-S Central (11-5, 11-3) will make the soccer 2A playoffs, but they aren’t finished fighting for the second seed amongst the South Mountain Athletic Conference. R-S Central has won five matches in a row, while Chase has won five of their last six. The only Trojan loss during that time was to R-S Central.
Volleyball
R-S Central (10-7) made the 2A volleyball playoffs, seeded 23 out of 32 teams in the west. The Lady Hilltoppers gave Salisbury a fit, but lost in five sets to the Lady Hornets.
Thomas Jefferson also found a spot in the 1A west playoffs, seeded 27 of 32 teams. While they fought tough, the Lady Gryphons fell (17-25, 14-25, 16-25) to West Montgomery. Thomas Jefferson ends the season 9-12.
Finally, Martinsville is this coming weekend and I will follow up what goes on there in what sets up to be an exciting final Nextel Cup short track race of the season. Just this past weekend, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch were all eliminated from championship contention. All three are surprise considering Junior has been consistently good all season. Johnson normally is the driver people are chasing by this time late in the season and Busch was sitting second in points coming into last weekend.
Of the eight drivers left in contention, Brad Keselowski is likely the one to beat. Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick are there as well. However, I am going to pick Joey Logano to win this weekend at Martinsville.
