Eastern bests Western; Southern wins; Cummings falls
By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Southeast Alamance’s high-powered offense draws lots of attention, but the Stallions needed second-half defensive stops to secure Friday night’s 37-22 victory against host Williams in a battle of Mid-Carolina Conference unbeatens at Burlington Memorial Stadium.
“Two heavyweights going at it,” Southeast coach Tony Aguilar said. “I think our guys needed that win.”
Southeast quarterback Tyler Jackson threw for three touchdowns and 240 yards.
“To win the conference we’ve got to win every one we play,” Jackson said.
Southeast (8-0 overall, 4-0 Mid-Carolina Conference) is two wins away from its second undefeated regular season in three years.
Trailing 37-22 and looking to complete a monumental comeback, Williams (4-1, 2-1) marched 78 yards for a first down at the Southeast 2 to end the third quarter. The next three plays resulted in minus-3 yards before an incomplete pass on fourth down.
“We dialed up the plays we thought they were going to run and we got them a couple of times,” Aguilar said.
The Bulldogs got the ball back in Southeast territory and were again thwarted on downs before the Stallions chewed up the final 6½ minutes.
“We struggled to move the ball consistently,” Williams coach Patrick Stokes said.
When Williams didn’t make the Stallions pay for second-quarter miscues, including a muffed punt recovered by Jy’Mir Jones, it ended up being game-changing.
Southeast needed three plays to go 68 yards, with Jackson’s 50-yard strike to McMillian resulting in points and a 16-7 lead with 4:36 left before halftime.
“I felt like we just kept going from there,” Jackson said. “We’re very explosive.”
Zaydin Harris returned a Williams fumble to the Bulldogs’ 44-yard line. Next play, Jackson found Logan Luang-Sy along the right sideline for a touchdown with 41 seconds to go in the half.
Southeast’s Logan Luang-SyIt turned into 15 points in 10 seconds for the Stallions with Brayden Robbins returning an interception of Robbie Gould 17 yards for a touchdown. With the previous two extra-point kicks blocked, D.J. Callis ran in the two-point conversion for a 30-7 halftime lead.
“I think our youth showed in the first half when the adversity struck,” Stokes said.
As disastrous as the final sequences of the first half were for the Bulldogs, the first four minutes of the second half couldn’t have gone much better. Orville Pass intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble, both leading to Williams touchdowns on possessions that involved 35 and 25 yards.
Jallante Van Hook ran 6 yards for a touchdown and Christian Booth sprinted 25 yards to the end zone followed by quarterback Robbie Davis’ two-point conversion run, so suddenly it was 30-22.
“We challenged them at halftime to win every play,” Stokes said.
It looked different for the Stallions. “We were locked in early and we lost it a little bit,” Harris said.
But Southeast responded with a 12-play touchdown drive, including a fourth-and-8 pick-up, capped by Drew Easter’s 1-yard run prior to the fourth-quarter stalemate.
Davis finished with 123 rushing yards on 21 carries. For Southeast, Callis gained 86 yards on 21 attempts.
Earlier, Williams scored just a couple of plays into the game on Booth’s 74-yard run. Southeast’s second possession produced Jackson’s 22-yard touchdown pass play to Alex Parrish.
The Stallions took the lead at 10-7 on Aiden Hayes’ 33-yard field goal early in the second quarter.
“We’ll be better for it,” Stokes said of the outing. “We won’t see a better passing attack all season.”
- Eastern Alamance 35, Western Alamance 21: At Elon, Sammy Raphael scored two touchdowns in the final three minutes as the visiting Eagles claimed the Mid-Carolina Conference victory.
Eastern’s Sammy RaphaelEastern (5-2, 3-1) stayed in the hunt for a conference title. Raphael had three total touchdown runs among his 232 rushing yards on 27 carries.
Western (4-3, 1-2), which has lost three in a row, pulled even with 6:42 remaining.
Raphael scored with 2:32 left to break a tie. Trint Totten’s interception set up Raphael’s final touchdown, which came with 1:51 to play.
Earlier, Raphael began the scoring with a long touchdown run in the second quarter. The Eagles also scored on Braxton Ballard’s passes to Devontia Clark and Hunter Eichmann. Ballard completed 12 of 20 passes for 215 yards, with Clark collecting 173 of those yards on five receptions.
Western’s Colten Hill (39 yards), Ethan Oakley (16 yards), and Keyari Poteat (6 yards) were on the receiving end of scoring passes from Grayson Smith, who threw for 244 yards and was intercepted twice.
- Roxboro Person 32, Cummings 0: At Roxboro, Willie Lunsford threw for three touchdowns, with two of those to Tae Winstead.
The Rockets (2-5, 1-3) were up 25-0 at halftime.
For Cummings (1-6, 0-4), which suffered a shutout for the second game in a row, Hudson Pressley threw for 106 yards and Jazian Bigelow rushed for 68 yards.
- Southern Alamance 42, Harrells Chrisitan 0: At Harrells, Sincere Thompson ran for four first-half touchdowns and 177 yards as the visiting Patriots made the long trip and secured a non-conference victory in the first meeting between the schools.
Thompson, who racked up 19 carries, had touchdown runs of 2 and 22 yards in the first quarter. His second-quarter scoring runs were from 3 and 20 yards. Southern (5-2) built on a 27-0 halftime lead.
Tustin Johnson’s 7-yard run followed by Camden Whittemore’s two-point conversion run and Nathaniel Johnson’s 12-yard run highlighted the second-half scoring. Johnson finished with 75 yards on eight carries and Whittemore had 65 yards on seven attempts.
Southern held a 17-4 advantage in first downs.
Harrells Christian (4-3) had minus-24 rushing yards and 64 passing yards.
- Orange 29, Oxford Webb 28: At Oxford, Nalin Reddy kicked a 30-yard field goal on the game’s final play as the Panthers (3-4, 1-1) secured a Big Seven Conference road victory.
