Friday, October 23, 2009

Gryphon Second Quarter Surge

Rocky Mount played their best football of the year in the second quarter scoring twenty one points and coasted to a 21-14 victory in Big East play at Fike.

Trailing 7-0 in the second quarter the Gryphon's punt rush knocked the Fike blocker into their punter and Equail Wiggins recovered in the end zone for a Gryphon touchdown. The very next series Collins Cuthrell rolled toward his left and flung the ball to Spencer Bell who held his hands outstretched and caught touchdown pass of 44 yards. The ball was thrown directly over Bell's helmet and Spencer relied on the feel of the ball in his hands to make the catch. To this point in the season this is maybe one of the top five plays of the year.

Collins Cuthrell on a fourth and goal with time running out snuck over from one yard out to give the Gryphons a 21-7 half time lead. The Gryphons failed to score in the second half but for the first time this year got the short passing game in gear and Cuthrell was 7 for ten for over a hundred yards on the night.

Fike twice in the fourth quarter tried to tie the game but the Gryphon defense had a defensive stop inside the ten and a pass interception to seal the victory. The Grypons are now 4-4 and 2-1 in Big East play.

Northern Nash who's defense had played well all year came up big tonight in scoring a touchdown and shutting out Nash Central 20-0 at Central. This breaks Northern's 13 game losing streak. Understand that Nash Central had some discipline problems and some players did not start the game but I don't care who played and when Northern beat the team that Nash Central put on the field and beat em good.

Hunt held off a determined Firebird team from Southern Nash and takes the outright lead in the Big East with a 28-20 win over Southern Nash. This sets up Rocky Mount and Southern playing for second place in the conference next Friday night at Gryphon Land.

In the game of the decade in Pinetops Southwest Edgcombe beat Tarboro 22-16 in front of what I hear may have been as many as 6,000 fans. I have heard they were 4 deep around the entire field.

Let me throw this scenario at you. SouthWest may be the conference champs and there is a good chance that they will be seeded in the big 2-A bracket. Wouldn't it be something if Tarboro made it back to the 2-A championship and Southwest made it to the Big 2-AA and both played back to back for the State titles. It could happen.