Andrews – When Wildcats running back Isaac Weaver went down with a right knee injury in the first quarter Friday night, sitting out wasn’t an option.
“There was not one second I didn’t plan on going back in,” Weaver said. “As soon as I felt good enough, I just wanted to go back in and help the team.”
Before suffering the injury, Weaver looked like he was going to build on an excellent sophomore campaign. He scored Andrews’ first touchdown of the season, a 16-yard run to give the Wildcats a 6-0 lead.
On his next carry, a 6-yard run, Weaver went down and had to be looked at by head athletic trainer Jay Reno. He walked back to the sideline with a slight limp, then went to work doing what he could to get back in. He tried to walk it off on the sideline. Stretch on the bench and the ground.
Eventually, he put a knee sleeve on and picked up where he left off. Weaver finished with 263 yards and four touchdowns, powering Andrews to a 36-11 win.
“Isaac’s Isaac,” Andrews head coach James Phillips said. “He’s special. I was proud of him.”
Weaver led a dominant Wildcats rushing attack, as they ran for 414 yards. Hickory struggled with both Weaver and junior Austin Martin, who ran for 142 yards in his first game back after missing all of last season while recovering from knee surgery.
“They’re kind of thunder and lightning,” Phillips said of Weaver and Martin.
With both Weaver and Martin imposing their collective will on the Hawks, the score could have been more lopsided if not for Andrews ball security issues. The Wildcats fumbled six times, losing four. That’s the biggest thing Phillips thinks needs to be cleaned up when Andrews travels to face what he says is a “solid” Cherokee team this Friday.
One of those fumbles came with Weaver on the bench and Andrews knocking on the door of the end zone. Quarterback Donovan Bateman thought he crossed the goal line for a touchdown, but the officials disagreed and Hickory recovered the ball and set up shop at its own 20-yard line. The Hawks drove down to the Wildcats 12-yard line before the defense stood tall and held Hickory to a field goal to cut the lead to 6-3.
Weaver returned to the field on the next drive, and along with Martin, led a nine-play, 63-yard touchdown drive. Weaver finished off the drive with a six-yard run, and Martin’s 2-point conversion run gave Andrews a 14-3 lead with 1:01 left in the second quarter.
That looked like it would be the last score in the half, but with Hickory’s next drive starting at midfield, two big completions by Latrell Parks to Clay Blakely moved the ball to the 1-yard line. Josh Gibson finished the job from there scoring a touchdown and converting the two-point try to cut Andrews lead to 14-11 with less than 2 seconds remaining in the half.
After being challenged by Phillips to play better in the second half, Andrews responded by pitching a shutout. Weaver scored two more touchdowns to put the game away, then Drew Martin intercepted a pass near midfield and ran it back for a touchdown with 44 seconds left. It was his first touchdown at the varsity level.
“I got a pick last year, and they said it won’t happen again.” Martin said. “But it happened again this year.”