Southwestern Randolph records second straight shutout

ASHEBORO — They call it Friday Night Lights, but for the Southwestern Randolph High School varsity football team, it has been anything but. However, judging by the results the Cougars recorded the first two weeks of the new season, one could argue for SWR to play all its games on a non-Friday night.

One week after seeing their opener delayed until Saturday afternoon because of a heavy rain storm that pelted the area, the Cougars moved Week 2’s home game with Trinity up a night last week to Thursday in an effort to avoid a possible bad-weather situation once again.

Two non-Friday night games, the same result.

The Cougars followed up a dismantling of East Davidson with an even better performance in Week 2 as the Cougars throttled Trinity, 55-0. Much like it did in its 45-0 win over East Davidson when SWR scored 38 points in the first half, the Cougars blitzed the Bulldogs with 41 points in the first half to institute a running clock for the entire second half for the second straight week.

Things are expected to get tougher this week when SWR travels to Providence Grove to meet the Patriots in a game scheduled for Friday night. But who knows when that game will actually be played.

“We have a veteran coaching staff who have prepared our kids and we got a veteran group of kids,” SWR coach Seth Baxter said after watching his team surrender just three first downs, none in the second half when the Bulldogs ran just four plays. “We don’t have a lot of seniors on our roster, but we have juniors and seniors who have played key moments. They have prepared themselves mentally and physically.”

Most coaches like for their players to get into a routine during the season, the same time to practice each day and an agenda for each practice. That has been thrown out the window for the first weeks of the season.

“It’s been quite an adjustment, played Saturday, come in and Tuesday we made the decision to move it up because of what the storms were looking like,” Baxter said. “We had to combine some practices, but we were able to talk a lot and walk through some stuff physically. We haven’t been able to play on a Friday night, so hopefully next week we get to play on Friday night and get an extra day of rest.”

Against Trinity, the Cougars looked plenty rested as quarterback Levi Dalke tied a school record with four touchdown passes to four different receivers, all in the first half. The four scoring tosses tied the record held by his father Brad Dalke and came one week after he set the passing yards record with a 298-yard effort against ED.

“He’s a leader and is someone I can trust on the field,” Baxter said of his junior signal-caller.

There were plenty of accolades to go around after Week 2 as the defense put in another stellar effort, holding THS to what was unofficially minus-42 yards on the ground. That included an 18-yard loss that the Cougars turned into a safety in the first quarter. 

“We have been dominant,” said senior defensive back Kaiden Mabe, who started the Cougars’ scoring by returning an interception 43 yards early on. “We just have to be more violent than the other team. We practice this all week, watching film, watching every play. The ball just happened to come in my hands and took it all the way home. I had wonderful blocks.”

A safety recorded by Evan Greene, a 42-yard TD pass to Asher Haggerty, a 14-yard scoring run from Dalke, an 11-yard scoring strike to Braxton Proctor along with three PATs from TJ Schneider and a two-point conversion run by Haggerty gave the Cougars a whopping 31-0 lead after the first quarter.

A 24-yard field goal by Schneider, a 16-yard TD pass to Trivett Kennedy and a 5-yard strike to Nate Garner along with two more PATs from Schneider pushed the SWR advantage to 48-0 at the break.

With a running clock in the second half, SWR had a 20-4 play advantage, adding a 12-yard scoring run from Carter King and a PAT from Cooper Brown.

The Bulldogs managed 40 yards of passing, meaning THS was minus-2 of total offense in the game.

“We’re reading our guards and our up-front guys are getting to the quarterback,” Proctor said. “We’re overall dominating.”

Baxter said he has been pleased with the start to the 2026 season.

“We’ve done what we are supposed to do,” he said of outscoring ED and THS 100-0 in the first two weeks. “I feel our kids are flying around the football defensively. We are very aggressive and physical right now. This is a close tight-knit group that really enjoys playing together. And they have accepted roles that have been asked of them.”

Now the Patriots await. Last season, SWR shutout East Davidson 39-0 and then topped Trinity 49-7 to start the season before Providence Grove came to SWR and recorded a 31-0 victory.

“We took it on the chin last year,” Baxter said. “PG came in here and really hit us in the mouth and we got knocked on our heels and didn’t know how to respond. Our kids understand that and know what to expect. We keep talking about a standard to be held to.”