WS Chronicle

BY CRAIG T. GREENLEE

FOR THE CHRONICLE

Murphy’s Law was in full effect in Carver’s eyebrow-raising loss to West Stokes in JV football last week. Literally and figuratively, every conceivable thing that could go wrong, did go wrong.

“All night, we faced so much adversity,” said Coach Alonzo Winfield of Carver. “There wasn’t a whole lot that went right for us. But on the other hand, our people continued to play hard in spite of all the things that didn’t go in their favor. I’m proud of the way they handled themselves.”

It was bad enough that the Yellowjackets had their worst performance of the season in a 35-6 loss on their home turf. Five key contributors had to watch from the sidelines because of injuries. Carver never resembled the team that had a five-game win streak going.

Both teams entered the game tied for first place in the Western Piedmont 2-A Conference standings. With one game left on the schedule, the best that Carver (6-2, 3-1 WPC) can hope for is a second-place finish.

Aside from injuries to key personnel, the Yellowjackets appeared sluggish. Carver started last week with a 30-0 road win over North Forsyth in a Monday night game that was rescheduled because of heavy rains in late September. Three nights after whipping the Vikings, the Yellowjackets were back in action against a revved-up Wildcats squad.

It didn’t help matters that Carver’s starting quarterback (Tyron Teal) and his back-up (Teryan Cherry) were out of commission because of concussions. In their absences, the Yellowjackets had trouble trying to establish any semblance of offensive continuity. By midway through the second quarter, starting running back T.J. Boyce was called on to run the team as the fourth-string quarterback.

“It’s tough when you have to go that far down the depth chart,” said Winfield. “Plus, we fell behind early, and that really hurt us. West Stokes played well, but I also feel that with all that was going on with us, they caught us at a good time.”

After the opening kickoff, the game turned ugly in a hurry for Carver. On fourth down in the first quarter, the Jackets were pinned deep in their own territory. Punter D. Credle had to pull the ball down to prevent a blocked kick and he ran, but was tackled behind the line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line.

Three plays later, Tyler Smith scored on a nine-yard quarterback keeper and Nick Smith kicked the PAT to put West Stokes up 7-0. On the ensuing kickoff, Phillip Legette fumbled on the return and the Wildcats recovered at Carver’s 20-yard line. Smith connected with Zan Sandlin on a six-yard touchdown pass to give his team a two-touchdown cushion near the end of the first quarter.

West Stokes (6-2, 4-0 conference) added another touchdown with less than a minute left to play in the second quarter on Smith’s 19-yard scoring pass to Tyler Little. Carver showed some spunk and resiliency right after that score when Boyce sliced through heavy traffic to score on an 87-yard kick-off return.

Carver’s jubilation, however, was short-lived. The Yellowjackets were flagged for a block in the back, and Boyce’s score was nullified. West Stokes led 21-0 at intermission.

The Yellowjackets finally reached the end zone with 2:57 remaining in the third quarter. Boyce fumbled the snap while lined-up in the shot-gun, but still managed to power his way through two tacklers on a four-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to 21-6.

West Stokes put the game out of reach early in the fourth quarter when Smith threw an 11-yard scoring pass to Austin Lilly, who scored again on a short run with less than a minute remaining in the contest.

“We’ll bounce back,” Winfield promised. “We’re getting our injured players back in time for that last game. We know we can do better than what we showed against West Stokes.”