Andrews – Andrews football head coach James Phillips kept it simple with his Wildcats after a 56-0 win over New Faith Christian Academy, Ga., on Friday night.
“We were the better football team.”
The Wildcats needed to take care of business and did exactly that.
“We still gotta find ways to get better,” Phillips said. “And we knew that they had three or four really good athletes and they had some speed. We don’t typically see that kind of speed, and at times you could see flashes of it and it caused us to work on our pursuit angles and stay on our feet. …
“I thought our tackling was actually pretty good. We executed very well offensively. We just wanted to come in and punch them in the mouth.”
Phillips was able to get film from a New Faith Christian game the previous week, though this was their first game listed on MaxPreps. Like Andrews, the Titans have a small roster with just 20 players. However, New Faith Christian was a lot less disciplined and organized on both sides of the field.
Just 10 of the Titans’ 42 plays went for positive yardage, while another 13 went for negative yardage. Andrews, meanwhile, ran for 288 yards on only 27 carries, with five players running for touchdowns. The Wildcats also scored once on defense and special teams, plus intercepted New Faith Christian quarterback Montreal Lewis four times.
Will Roberts had the first interception early in the first quarter, returning it to the Titans’ 20-yard line. On the next play, Graham Burch took a double handoff up the middle for a touchdown. Following a shanked punt from New Faith Christian, Dalton Rose steamrolled his way through multiple Titans defenders on his way to a 26-yard touchdown and a 14-0 Andrews lead less than three minutes into the game.
It didn’t stop there. Facing a fourth-and-27 at its own 3-yard line, New Faith Christian shanked another punt, which Roberts caught at the 4-yard line and ran in for an easy touchdown.
The lopsided score allowed Phillips to rotate players throughout the game, with several players stepping up in different spots. Roberts is one of the team’s starting linebackers, but also got some carries in the second half. Junior Braxton Rickett is new to the team this year and had two interceptions Friday, including one in the third quarter where he battled to keep possession while staying in bounds.
Eli Aguilar added another touchdown on a six-yard run with 4:28 left in the quarter, then Samuel Preston ran it in from seven yards out on a handoff around the right side on the first play of the second quarter. A seven-yard touchdown run by Rose with 6:33 left in the second quarter extended the Andrews lead to 42-0 and put the game into a running clock. Aguilar added to the rout by returning an interception for a touchdown on the next play from scrimmage.
It was almost all smooth sailing for the Wildcats, except for one potentially major speed bump. Late in the second quarter, quarterback Everett Tatham scrambled and injured his right knee. Tatham did not return to the game, and after icing his knee was driven to the locker room before returning to the field on crutches for the second half.
Phillips said postgame he didn’t think it was “anything catastrophic,” but said they would know more in a few days. Though junior Holden Todd stepped in at quarterback and led that drive down the field for a touchdown and ran for a 12-yard touchdown himself in the second half, Tatham would be a big loss if he’s unable to go against Mitchell next week, as he’s also one of Andrews’ starting safeties.
The Mountaineers (3-0) will easily be the Wildcats’ toughest test so far. This will be the third straight year the two teams have met, with Andrews winning 44-27 in Bakersville last year.
Mitchell started the year with wins over Charlotte Latin (16-7), McDowell (35-6) and Alleghany (22-14). The win over McDowell was the 100th in the career of Mountaineers head coach Travise Pitman in just his 10th season. It’s been a mountain football slugfest the last two seasons, and Phillips expects nothing less come Friday.
“We’ve had wars with them the last couple of years,” Phillips said. “And I know they’ll be well coached and prepared when they come down here, and it’ll be a dogfight.”
