3
THURSDAY
SEPTEMBER 2,
1993
East Gaston quarterback Terry Wallace (3) found that it wasn't "Smart" to throw on Kings Mountain's
hard-charging defense in Friday's season-opening football game at John Gamble Stadium. Brothers Bron
(62) and Jahi Smart (82) led a Mountaineer defensive charge that kept Wallace and the other Warriors on
their backs most of the night in a 59-0 KM waltz.
Play at Crest Friday night
Mountaineers bomb WwW
Kings Mountain High football coach Denny Hicks
doesn't expect any other games this year to be as easy
as last Friday's season opener with East Gaston at
KM's John Gamble Stadium.
Scoring on running plays, passing plays, kick re-
turns, fumble recoveries, and just about every other
way one can imagine, the Mountaineers blasted the
~ Warriors 59-0 in one of the most one-sided victories in
the Mountaineers’ storied football history. )
Only two other KMHS teams have matched that
score. In 19535, the Mountaineers routed Bessemer City
59-0 in the season's opener and went on to win their
first-ever Southwestern Conference championship. In
1985, Hicks' Mountaineers blanked Chase 59-0 and
went on to become the first and only team in 1 school =k
‘history to win 11 games in a season.
Hicks is hoping this year's team faces a similar fate,
but if so, it will come from a lot of improvement and
hard work because everyone in the stands Friday night
saw quickly that East Gaston was not a top-rate oppo-
nent.
Hicks didn't think the Mountaineers would have
such an easy time with the Warriors, even though their
team had been almost entirely wiped out by graduation
and some other tough luck in pre-season.
"We knew that they had to drop their JV program to
have enough people to play," Hicks said. "We saw
them in a short scrimmage against Providence and we
knew they had four good football players. We thought
they played pretty well at Providence, but they lost
three starters between the scrimmage and Friday night,
and one of their best players (tackle Tiny Horton) was
injured during the game. They had only 14 or 15 up-
perclassmen coming into the season, and when you
lose three or four starters out of that small a nucleus it
makes it tough. That probably had a lot to do with the
score."
The Mountaineers got started in a big way - scoring
on their first two possessions for a 13-0 lead and run-
ning up a halftime score of 33-0. The KM eleven could
have scored even more points but Hicks had his third
unit quarterback touch his knee on the ground two en-
tire series in the fcurth quarter to keep from further
embarrassing the Warriors after the KM defense recov-
5,9
Kings Mountain’ s Kasey Holland (31) scores on a burst of speed up the middle of the field in Friday's
season-opening football game with East Gaston at KM's John Gamble Stadium. Holland scored three
touchdowns and gained 75 yards rushing in 13 carries to help lead the Mountaineers to a 59-0 victory
which tie the school record for most points in a single game.
arriors 59-0
ered fumbles in the shadow of the goal line.
Despite the impressive score, Kings Mountain's of-
fense gained only 177 yards on the ground and 43 in
the air. But the Mountaineers returned a punt and a
fumble recovery for touchdowns.
Fullback Kasey Holland, who led the rushing with
75 yards in 13 carries,
Kings Mountain tailback Marcus Bell (9) tries to turn the corner for some Thing room in Friday’ S sea-:
got the scoring under way 2 1/2 minutes into the game
when he broke a nine-yard touchdown run up the mid-
dle to cap a seven play, 65-yard drive of the opening
kickoff. The offense was aided by 20 yards in penalties
against the Warriors.
Brian LeFevers, a junior kicking specialist and re-
serve quarterback, booted his first PAT in organized
football to give the Mountaineers a 7-0 lead. He fin-
ished with 5-of-9 for the night.
Sophomore return specialist C.C. Smith, who re-
turned five kicks for 117 yards and had one 90-yard
punt return called back because of a clipping penalty,
returned a punt 30 yards to the East Gaston 49 to set
up the second score. After a penalty against East
‘Gaston, quarterback Lamont Littlejohn hooked up with
a wide open Divan Moss for a 43-yard touchdown pass
to make it 13-0 with 5:41 left in the first period.
After an exchange of punts, Smith returned another
punt 35 yards to the 47 to put the Mountaineer offense
in good scoring position again. Four plays later,
Littlejohn scored from 26 yards out and LeFevers
added the PAT to make it 20-0.
A fumble recovery at the Warrior 32 set up a 16-
yard touchdown run by Holland which made it 27-0
with 6:11 left in the half; and Kenny Bridges forced a
fumble which was recovered by David Owenby with
39 seconds left in the half to set up a five-yard scoring
run by Marcus Bell with just 10 seconds left to make it
33-0.
Bridges picked off an East Gaston pass and returned
it 80 yards for a touchdown to make it 39-0 with 1:40
left in the third quarter; and Holland scored from 15
yards out after a fumble recovery by Sheldon Smith to
son-opening football game with East Gaston at KM's John Gamble Stadium. The Mountaineers won 59-0.
They play at Crest Friday night.
Kings Mountain High's JV foot-
ball team is eagerly awaiting its
against Crest at John Gamble
Stadium.
The jayvees have been practic-
ing with the Mountaineer varsity
since August 1 and were scheduled
to open last week against East
Gaston. But, East had to cancel its
JV schedule because it needed all
the younger players to be able to
field a varsity team.
Kings Mountain High's soccer
team is improving with every game
but is still looking for its first win
of the season.
The Mountaineers of Dan Potter
lost three games in last week's
Gaston County Tournament, and
then fell to 4-A Crest in their regu-
lar season opener Monday night at
Crest.
The Mountaineers were sched-
uled to host East Gaston last night.
They are idle Monday and travel to
Statesville next Wednesday for a
JV-varsity doubleheader beginning
at 5:30.
"We've had a little rocky road,
but we've improved with cach
Kings Mountain High' s offensive coordinator Bruce Clark had his
machine in high gear in Friday's season-opening football game; with
East Gaston at Gamble Stadium.
game," said Potter. "It's just a mat-
ter of giving the young kids time
and climinating mental mistakes."
{
.season opener Thursday at 7 p.m. '
KMHS Coach Denny Hicks
tried in vain to find another team to
fill last week's slot.
All seven Mountaineer coaches
will be on the sidelines Thursday
night as KM goes to a platoon
coaching system, and hopefully a
platoon playing system. The coach-
es are trying to get as many players
into starting positions as possible
this year.
Eric Tate, who saw some action
in the fourth quarter of last week's
KM kickers o
Potter said he used the tourna-
ment to experiment with several
players at different positions.
The Mountaineers fell to 4-A
West Mecklenburg in the tourna-
ment opener, 3-0. The Indians
scored all of their goals early in the
first half.
"We came out playing very
timid," Potter said. "We were not
very aggressive in the first half but
we played well in the second half.
We had several good scoring op-
portunitics but none of them fell
in."
The Mountaineers lost to Hunter
Huss 1-0 in the second round. The
Huskies broke a streak of 22 con-
secutive losses.
"That wasn't a great honor for
us,” Potter said, "but I felt much
varsity game, will quarterback the
team, and the Mountaineers are
looking for some good ruaning
from tailback Desmond Holland
and fullback Shane Logan.
Others on the JV roster are R.E.
Barnes, Thomas Bell, Josh Bolin,
Emory Brown, Chris Burns,
Shamar Byers, Robert Campbell,
Justin Champion, Tim Collins,
Randy Conner, Rick Douville,
Daniel Gardner, J.W. Garner, Dave
Gentry, Derek Goode, Chris
better when I saw them beat East
Gaston in the next round. They're a
much better team than they've been
in the past.”
In Saturday's seventh place
game, the Mountaineers grabbed a
1-0 lead early on a goal by Wesley
Bridges, but the Spartans came
back to win 2-1 in overtime.
Neither team scored in the over-
time, but Gaston Day won by scor-
ing three straight penalty kicks in
the tic-breaker.
The Mountaineers grabbed an
carly 1-0 lead over Crest Monday
night as Bryan Leftwich assisted
~ Jordan Angeles with a goal, but
Crest came storming back for a 7-1
victory.
"We had some very good scoring
opportunitics in the second half on-
make it 46-0 as time expired in the third period.
See Football, 3-B
Bm JV team hosts Crest Thursday
Henderson, Weldon Hunter, Mike
Hyslop, Jonah Ingle, Mark
Johnson, Corey Jones, Kevin Ladd,
Robert Love, Lance McClain,
Thomas McClain, David
McDaniel, Johnny Marshall, Joey
Mergott, Tommy Morrow, Chris
Murgita, Jason Murphy Lance
Norris, Alan Oliver, Jeremy Oliver,
Joey Patrick, Cathan Randall, Chad
Reid, Mario Robbs, Leonard
Roseboro, John Sizemore, Chad
Smith, Marcus Smith and Jason
Wade.
f to slow start
ly to just miss on a couple of indi-
rect kicks and on a couple other
opportunitics,” Potter said. "But,
overall, as I told my players, it was
the best game we've played despite
the score. Crest is loaded with sc-
niors who have played together a
long time. I expect them to do
some really good things this year."
InalJV game, Crest won 1-0 but
thc Mountaineers gave a good ac-
count of themselves.
"It was our first game of the year
and our guys played really well for
their age and experience level.”
Potter said. "We have a bunch of
young people and Crest has a team
that was very good at the Middle
School level the last couple of
years."
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ZEA