Big plays help Wildcats survive Southwestern Randolph challenge

ASHEBORO — Big plays can come in a number of different ways on a high school football field. They include long scoring passes, hard-nosed running for big first downs, great catches along the sidelines and extra-effort plays that gain valuable yardage.

And big plays can also come on the defensive side of the football. Some of those include interceptions and fumble recoveries, especially when that fumble is returned for a score.

Eastern Randolph High School had a bevy of big plays last Friday night as the Wildcats turned back a valiant effort from Southwestern Randolph for a 28-7 Four Rivers Conference victory.

The win was the 26th straight in conference play for the Wildcats dating back to 2021 as they improved to 2-0 in the league and 5-3 overall with their third straight win. 

The Cougars, who will host Jordan-Matthews Friday night, had their Homecoming spoiled and slipped to 0-1 in the conference and 5-2 overall. It was the 599th varsity football game for the SWR program.

Big plays are a part of most games.

“It can happen at any time,” said ER senior Kobe Walker, who provided a number of them on offense and defense against the Cougars. “We have a lot of good players. It can change momentum. We have good players all across the field.”

ER’s Burton Cates, who is in the ninth season of his second stint as coach of the Wildcats, agreed.

“We got speed and we got a good group of receivers and our running backs run hard,” Cates said. “It’s a good combination right now and it’s something at the beginning of the year we thought we could work towards and really feed off of. We see we can do it.”

And then there’s the opposing team which has to deal with a team known for its big-play capability.

“I thought our defense played well,” said SWR coach Seth Baxter, who led the Eastern Randolph football program from 2009 to 2016.

“At the end of the day, they have so many weapons and it’s hard to stop all of them and they made a few more plays than we did. But I am proud of them.”

One big play for ER in the first quarter and a key one at the 8:24 mark of the second quarter, which may have completely flipped the momentum toward the visitors’ side, were both provided on the defensive side by Day’Veion Ford.

The Cougars dominated play in the first half, running 23 plays to ER’s 16, outrushing ER 64-46, holding the Wildcats to 97 total yards, including one big play very late in the half, while registering 104 yards of offense and driving into the red zone three times in the first two quarters. But SWR was still behind 14-7 at the break.

SWR took the opening kickoff and drove to the ER 19 before Ford stepped in front of a pass near the goal line and returned it to the 19.

ER recorded one first down — that coming on a run from punt formation — before they had to punt it away. The Cougars, behind stout running from Nathan Garner and Levi Dalke, moved the ball to the ER 2 and Dalke bulled his way in for a 7-0 lead with 10:49 left in the first half.

And it could have gotten worse for the Wildcats after Kaiden Mabe intercepted a pass two plays into ER’s ensuing drive, setting the Cougars up on their 40. A backwards pass from Dalke to Carson Wood and then a 51-yard heave downfield to Emmitt Lewis put the Cougars on the ER 3, looking to take a two-touchdown lead.

But a fumble near the 7 was picked up by Ford, who dashed 93 yards in the opposite direction for a score. Instead of being down 14-0, the Wildcats had tied the contest on a very big play.

“I was focused, saw the opportunity to take the ball and I took it and just ran,” said Ford, who added the fumble recovery for a score to his earlier interception. “I picked it up. Scoop and score. It was a big momentum change. We were down seven and they were about to score. We needed it. There was green grass and I just ran.”

Cates noticed how the Cougars were dominating to that point.

“The first quarter, we got outplayed top to bottom,” Cates said. “We talked about it during the week. They were going to be excited. Homecoming, 5-1. I told them to go weather the storm and we got that big turnover from Day’Veion. We talked all week about big games like this, somebody is going to have to make plays and we had some kids make some plays tonight.”

There were more. Plenty more.

A second interception in ER territory, this one by Cameron Hinton, set the Wildcats up on their own 36. With just 32 seconds remaining in the half, ER had a third-and-7 from the SWR 36. Walker took a screen pass at his own 34 and dashed through, around and over the Cougars defense to score with just 24.9 seconds to play in the first half.

Joel Salinas kicked the extra-point for a 14-7 lead.

“Going in, it was about to be halftime,” Walker said. “I was like, ‘I have to score right now. This is my time.’ They called my number and I just had to keep digging. We got fired up. No way we were playing to our level. We came in after halftime fired up.”

The 36-yard pass from Cade McCallum to Walker was one of the very few plays the Cougars failed to bring a ball carrier down.

“They make that huge play with Kobe at the end of the first half and we had about five misses on him,” Baxter said. “We didn’t have very many missed tackles throughout the game except for that one play. I’m proud of our kids. We have to go back to work and we will.”

SWR took its first possession of the first half and drove to just outside the red zone when the Cougars turned the ball over on downs. The Wildcats capitalized on another big play, a 62-yard pass play from McCallum to Cainin Glover, for a 21-7 lead. The Cougars had dominated time of possession prior to that scoring drive and had a 32-16 advantage in plays called.

“I have to give it all to my QB, he leads the offense and takes us where we need to go,” said Glover, who had four receptions for 95 yards, including a spectacular sideline catch later in the half. “I didn’t even know the ball was coming. I just looked up and I seen it and magically caught it. All the glory to God.”

After an interception by Marcus Bowden, the Wildcats clinched the win with a 75-yard drive, culminated by a 1-yard scoring run from Walker.

“The thing I challenged them on before we came out here was I wanted to see them compete for four quarters,” Baxter said. “The mental hump for Southwestern … We didn’t quit and we played our tails off.

“Give Eastern credit,” Baxter said. “Glover made some unreal catches, they hit some big plays and it all starts with Kobe Walker, it all starts with him running the ball. Defensively, he was unreal. All over the field. We’re not accepting losing, but there are some things we can take away from this game. We did some good things. We just have to find a way to finish.”

Nathan Garner was a workhorse for SWR, finishing with 64 yards rushing and anchoring a secondary that saw great improvement from previous weeks. 

Dalke threw for 149 yards. McCallum was 8 of 14 with two scores and one interception. He threw for 162 yards.

“We created some turnovers,” Cates said. “I thought we could cover with our secondary better because of our speed. We were a little late on a couple of them. But they made some good throws and some good plays.”