Herald
Kings Mountain Herald
Mountaineers at Kannapolis Friday
for Western 3A Championship game
fg Winner will advance to state
1 for the Western Regional championship:
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED - One of the game officials explains
a call to Kings Mountain High football coach Ron Massey during
Friday's third round state 3A playoff game with Jamestown
Ragsdale at KM's John Gamble Stadium. Massey's
i Mountaineers became ihe first KM team to make it past three
3 : rounds in the playoffs by defeating the Tigers 28-21.
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| GOOD BLOCKING - Kings Mountain running back Joe Williamson (44) gets good blocking from Laymond Caldwell
(75) and Julius Curry (61) in Friday's state playoff game with Ragsdale at John Gamble Stadium. The Mountaineers
came from behind in the second half to win 28-21. They travel to Kannapolis Friday to play A.L. Brown's Little Wonders
December 4, 19971
Page 1 Section B
championship at Chapel Hill
Kings Mountain High football fans who
were impressed with the running of
Ragsdale back Darian Freeland last week
probably haven't seen anything yet.
When the Mountaineers travel to
Kannapolis Friday night to take on A.L.
Brown for the Western Regional champi-
onship and the right to advance to the state
title game at Chapel Hill they will face not
one, but two of the best running backs in
the state.
The Little Wonders, 13-1 overall and tri-
champions of the South Piedmont
Conference, have one of the best all-around
backs in the state in junior Nick Maddox,
who has rushed for 1,959 yards on 238 car-
ries and 26 touchdowns and has also caught
six touchdown passes and returned six
kicks for touchdowns.
And when Maddox isn't creating excite-
~ ment for the home fans, Coach Bruce
Hardin can count on senior tailback Traun
Brown who has 1,239 yards rushing on 208
carries and has scored 14 touchdowns.
"Offensively, they are very good and
they are well coached," says KMHS Coach
Ron Massey, whose club takes a 10-4 over-
"all record and carries the banner of the
Southwestern 3A Conference into the semi-
finals match-up. "They've got a lot of se-
niors. Maddox has tremendous speed, and
he may be for just out and out speed the
fastest kid we've played against. He plays
some at tailback, and they put him in the
slot also. He catches the ball, runs the ball,
throws the ball...he is just a great athlete."
While Maddox, who gained over 1,200
yards as a sophomore last year, is a threat
to score from anywhere on the field,
Massey said he is also impressed with the
inside running of Brown. Even though the
Wonders' quarterback, William Craft, docs-
n't throw a lot, he does have talent and has
hit 31-0f-67 passes for 529 yards and eight
touchdowns.
"They've got good receivers who run
very disciplined routes and catch the ball,"
Massey said. "If you load up to stop the run
they can throw the ball. If you lay back and
try to take the passing game away, they run
the ball. They are well-rounded and well-
coached."
As impressive as the offense is, Massey
is equally if not more impressed with the
Wonders' defense. Many observers feel
their defensive front is the best and the
quickest in the state.
"Defensively, they have as much quick-
ness as anybody we've played, including
Shelby," Massey said. "They are probably
just as quick man for man as Shelby was.
The thing about it is that they have some
big kids that can run. Their two ends,
Desmond Miller, who is 6-1, 245, and and
Phillip Johnson (6-2, 225) run like a run- :
ning back. Both of them are three-year
starters and they solidify their defense."
Desmond, who has been selected to play :
in the Shrine Bowl, and Johnson also an-
chor the Wonders' offensive line.
Coach Bruce Hardin's Wonders, who
won the state championship in 1989 and
played for it in 1984 and 1991, won their
first eight games before suffering their only
loss of the season to East Rowan 26-21.
The Wonders bounced back from that loss :
to defeat Northwest Cabarrus and Concord
to throw the SPC into a three-way tie. In a
draw for playoff berths, East Rowan drew
first, Concord second and Brown third and
the Wonders went into the playoffs with a
10-1 record and #13 seed in the West.
See Brown, 4B:
KM comeback clips Ragsdale
Kings Mountain's defense ad-
justed to shut down one of the
state's top running backs and
quarterbacks in the second half,
and the offense came to life be-
hind the running of quarterback
Anthony Ash as the
Mountaineers erased a 21-7
halftime deficit to defeat
Ragsdale 28-21 in the third
round of the state 3A playoffs
Friday night at John Gamble
Stadium.
The victory, just the second
playoff victory ever on their
home turf, sends the
Mountaineers to Kannapolis
Friday for a state semifinals
matchup with perennial South
Piedmont power A.L. Brown.
The winner will face the Eastern
N.C. champion for the state title
on Friday, Dec. 12 in Chapel
Hill's Kenan Stadium.
Kings Mountain, which im-
proved to 10-4 overall, saw why
Ragsdale's 185-pound senior
tailback Darian Freeland had
1,500 yards rushing coming into
the contest. He gained an even
100 yards in the first half and
scored on touchdown runs of
two and four yards to give the
Tigers a 21-7 halftime lead.
In addition, Ragsdale's her-
alded senior quarterback Joey
Casazza, who has passed for
over 3,000 yards the past two
seasons, hit 6-of-11 passes for 96
yards during the first half as-
sault.
But the Mountaineers played
some of their best defense of the
year in the second half and
used a solid second half run-
ning performance to get their
crowd into the game, and
Ragsdale's offense wilted under
the pressure.
Freeland managed just nine
yards rushing on five second
half carries, and the defense
held Casazza to 5-of-15 for 44
yards. In all, the Tigers had just
34 yards rushing in the second
half and 23 of those came on a
scramble by Casazza in a last-
ditch effort to tie the game in
the fourth quarter. In fact, the
Mountaineers held the Tigers
without a second half first
down until the 2:40 mark of the
fourth quarter, and it came on a
pass interference penalty.
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Kings Mountain Coach Ron
Massey, whose team is the first
to make it four rounds into the
state playoffs, was extremely
proud of his players and their
tremendous second half effort.
"I was real proud of them," he
said. "In a situation like that it's
a lot different than coming back
in a regular season game."
Kings Mountain, which was
held to 34 yards rushing in the
first half, had its defense spread
apart by the quick Ragsdale of-
fense but made some key
adjustments at intermission.
"I was extremely proud of the
effort that we gave in the sec-
ond half," Massey said. "I don't
know if we read too many pa-
pers and listened too much to
people telling us how good we
were, but we just didn't play in
the first half. Hopefully we'll
come out a lot better this week,
because if we play like that in
the first half against A.L. Brown
we'll never see the other side of
it."
Ragsdale used Freeland's
quickness and some excellent
Re
play calling to roll to a 14-0 lead
after its first two possessions.
The Tigers took the opening
kickoff 76 yards in 12 plays
with Casazza hitting Bosaye
Jeffires with a 13-yard touch-
down pass and a 7-0 lead.
Freeland had six carries for 48
yards during the march, includ-
ing first down runs of 16, 10
and 18 yards.
After a KM punt, Ragsdale
drove 46 yards in five plays
with Freeland scoring from
three yards out for a 14-0 lead.
The big play in the drive was a
screen pass to Jeffires, who ap-
peared to have his knee touch-
ing the ground when he made
the catch but sprang up and
raced 37 yards to the
Mountaineer six yard line.
The Tigers had an apparent
34-yard scoring pass erased on
a chop block early in the second
quarter, and the Mountaineers
drove 88 yards in nine plays to
cut the score to 14-7.
Anthony Ash hit Chad Jones
on a 13-yard pass, and then Joe
Williamson took a short pass
out in the flat and turned it into
See Ragsdale, 3B
- i 7
hy ASH ON THE RUN - Kings Mountain quarterback Anthony Ash (12) picks up some big yards in
| second half of Friday's playoff game with Ragsdale at John Gamble Stadium. #13 for the Tigers is
] BS linebacker Steve Edwards. Mountaineers won 28-21.
RAGSDALE ON A ROLL - Ragsdale quarterback Joey Casazza (11) scrambles and looks for a
receiver in Friday's state 3A playoff game with Kings Mountain at KM's John Gamble Stadium.
Closing in to make the stop for the Mountaineers is defensive lineman Frank Hopper (78)