Andrews – There was a sense of inevitability at Hugh Hamilton Stadium on Friday.
Andrews, the No. 2 seed in the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A West playoffs after an undefeated regular season, knew pretty early in the week after watching film on No. 31 seed Highland Tech that the first-round playoff game could get out of hand quickly.
With the Rams (0-11 overall) not arriving until minutes before the 7:30 p.m. kickoff, it looked like they felt that way, too, and wanted to spend as little time in the mountains as possible. The game played out that way, with the Wildcats doing whatever they wanted during a 77-8 win.
Andrews (11-0) will host No. 15 seed Mountain Island Charter (5-5) this Friday after the Raptors knocked off No. 18 Bessemer City (2-9) 16-14.
“We all knew that this round, it wasn’t going to be that tough,” senior quarterback Donovan Bateman said. “But we were going to come out firing.”
Even though he was confident about his team’s chances, head coach James Phillips still wanted to find ways to get his team better this week. The playoffs will get a lot tougher, and he wanted to be cleaner in all three phases of the game.
“You have to find ways to get better, and sometimes you can get better on Friday night with the competition you play and sometimes that doesn’t always happen,” Phillips said. “And you have to find ways during the week to get better and our kids did that.”
The Wildcats’ first string didn’t see much action after the beginning of the second quarter. Isaac Weaver opened the scoring in the first quarter with a 40-yard punt return for a touchdown, and also had a 1-yard touchdown run in the opening frame. He surpassed 1,000 rushing yards on the season.
Andrews would score three other times in the opening 12 minutes: a 19-yard run by Austin Martin, a 54-yard catch and run by Cole Anderson on a pass from Bateman and a 35-yard connection between Bateman and Cameron Rattler. Andy Tatham’s 36-yard touchdown run with 10:15 to go in the second quarter ended the starters’ action for the night.
The rest of the night belonged to the reserves, who added another five touchdowns. Junior Samuel Preston was the standout with 102 rushing yards and three touchdowns, while Eli Aguilar had a 32-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and Will Roberts had a 12-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
“He’s learned a whole lot of what we’re doing,” Phillips said of Preston. “Which has helped when you get in these ball games and don’t have to think or wonder what he’s supposed to do. He knows what he’s supposed to do, and the athletic ability speaks for itself.”
Mountain Island Charter should provide a stiffer test this Friday. The Raptors are comfortable both running and throwing the ball, have a dynamic running back in Nate Eaton (912 rushing yards, seven touchdowns) and two defenders in Khiyale Washington (119 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, eight sacks) and Ashton Miller (94 tackles, 18 TFL, 19 sacks) who have wreaked havoc on opposing offenses.
But they’ll be making the 209-mile trek west, which is what Andrews wanted after losing at Starmount in the second round of the playoffs last year.
“One of our goals was to make the playoff run come through us, make everybody come here,” Bateman said.