By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
The way Southeast Alamance won the school’s first football championship Friday night seemed fitting for a perfect regular season.
The Stallions used a dominating defense and a relentless rushing attack to control the Mid-Carolina Conference showdown at Cummings, winning 31-3.
“We did it,” coach Tony Aguilar said as he hugged Bubba Sims, who was one of a cast of players with starring roles.
D.J. Callis rushed for 262 yards and two touchdowns and the Stallions (10-0 overall, 8-0 Mid-Carolina Conference) had linemen handle business at the line of scrimmage on offense and defense.
So the second-year school that still is light on a senior class has risen to special heights. This latest achievement came against a storied program.
“It’s crazy,” Southeast tight end and defensive end Drew Easter said. “It’s just great to have (a championship), especially against a great program like that.”
Cummings (8-2, 7-1) was denied snatching a third league title in four seasons.
This night belonged to the Stallions.
“Pretty special,” Aguilar said. “This group has bought in. The goal was to go 10-0. The goal was to win a conference championship.”
The Stallions believed they could pull this off.
“They just worked us,” running back/defensive back Daniel Bunker said of the coaches, “and we worked real hard.”
About the only downer came when Callis was helped off with an injury after his 23rd and final carry early in the fourth quarter. By then, the Stallions had set the tone.
“The trenches,” Aguilar said. “We felt the O-line, D-line, they had to dominate.”
Cummings running backs Jaidyn Briskey and Devin Witherspoon, who both entered the game with more than 1,000 yards on the ground, were held to 47 and 46 rushing yards, respectively. Briskey was done after a third-quarter foot injury.
“Didn’t execute on offense,” Cummings coach David Grimm said. “They did a great job stopping our running game, which we figured they were going to do.”
The Cavaliers led 3-0 when their second possession ended with Edwin Camacho’s 45-yard field goal.
That was it for Cummings.
“We came back after that,” Southeast linebacker Aiden Pak said. “We had to shut them out.”
Southeast went ahead on the second play of the second quarter on Callis’ 13-yard run. Cruz Nelms had a 27-yard field goal later in the quarter, so it was a 9-3 at halftime.
“The message was to ‘keep going, keep going,’ ” Easter said.
Callis ran the ball on the first three plays of the second half to cover 65 yards – capped by a 40-yard TD run. Landon Dodson tossed to Easter for the two-point conversion.
Sims ran for a 15-yard touchdown and Bunker, who ended up with 58 rushing yards, had a 3-yard touchdown run as Southeast scored on its first three possessions of the second half.
Jordan-Matthews 20, Graham 8: At Siler City, the season ended for Graham (1-9, 1-7) with the Mid-Carolina Conference road loss. Jordan-Matthews (3-7, 2-6) took seventh-place in the nine-team league with Graham in eighth.
Williams 54, Roxboro Person 16: At Burlington, Williams wrapped up the outright Central 3-A Conference championship by overwhelming the visiting Rockets at Burlington Memorial Stadium.
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Dan Mahan threw two of his four touchdown passes to Andrews Cruz as Williams (9-1, 6-0) built a 41-0 halftime lead.
Mahan’s scoring passes went to William Overby for 36 yards, to Cruz for 20 and 12 yards, and to Zach Powell for 23 yards.
Amarion Richmond had touchdown runs of 27 and 2 yards and Kris Rogers scored on a 2-yard. Leontae Turner returned an interception for a touchdown.
Roxboro Person (5-5, 2-4) lost its third game in a row.
Southern Alamance 21, Western Alamance 3: At Elon, the visiting Patriots limited Western to 45 yards of total offense and Justin Donley ran for two touchdowns and 136 yards on 33 carries.
The Patriots (7-3, 5-1) finished second in the Central 3-A Conference. Donley’s scoring runs were for 3 and 1 yards.
Nathan McNair threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Jake Whitt with 37 seconds left in the first half as Southern went up 14-3 with an 80-yard drive. The Patriots had the only points in the second half in the fourth quarter.
Western (7-3, 4-2), which managed five first downs in the game, scored when Noah Barrett’s 30-yard field goal made it 7-3 in the second quarter.
Eastern Alamance 21, Orange 13: At Mebane, the host Eagles scored all their points in the second half to win the Central 3-A Conference finale.
Eastern (3-7, 3-3) won three of its last four games to place fourth among the seven teams.
Orange (2-8, 1-5), which has a three-game skid, led 6-0 at halftime. The Eagles scored on the opening possession of the second half, with Braxton Ballard throwing to Rett Page.
The lead grew when Brandon Lindsey returned an interception for a touchdown. Tyrek Samuel’s touchdown run with less than six minutes left sent the Eagles to a 21-6 edge.
The Panthers responded with a gadget play for a touchdown with 4:14 remaining.
