Kings Mountain’s Moun-
taineers hope to bounce
back from last week’s loss to
Shelby when the Draughn
Wildcats come to John
Gamble Stadium Friday for
the Mountaineers’ home-
coming game.
Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.
The Wildcats, who de-
feated the Mountaineers last
year in Valdese, won their
first game last week with a
3-0 homecoming victory
over the Chase Trojans.
Sophomore kicker Abraham
Sagaon-Lozada booted a 30-
yard field goal with 5.1 sec-
onds left after the tough
Draughn defense forced
Chase to punt from its own
end zone.
The Wildcats are 1-2 in
the SMAC and 1-5 overall
with their losses coming to
West Lincoln, Freedom and
Patton in non-conference
play and Crest and R-S Cen-
tral in the SMAC.
First-year head coach
Allen Wittenburg has sev-
eral players back from last
year, including senior quar-
terback Coy Lambert, but he
is also depending on a lot of
younger players to come
5 pe — SSS
A I le Fs
a
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Ee RTS
through and they are doing
just that after dropping
games to tough non-confer-
ence and SMAC opponents.
“They are very similar to
last year,” says Mountaineer
coach Greg Lloyd. “They
have great size and run a
ball control offense.
“They’re playing better
and are coming here with a
win. I’m sure they will be
excited.”
Lloyd said the Wildcats
run a 3-4 defense.
“They played really good
defense last week against
Chase,” he said. “We’re
catching them playing their
best.”
The Draughn defense re-
covered two fumbles, inter-
cepted two passes and
notched numerous tackles
for loss in last week’s win.
Lloyd said the Moun-
taineers will be without
quarterback
Brandon Bell and leading
rusher Darian McClain this
week. Bell still has his left
shoulder in a sling after in-
juring it in the Burns game
two weeks ago; and Mec-
Clain suffered a high ankle
sprain in the Shelby game.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
The Kings Mountain Herald | www.kmherald.com
Mountaineers host Draughn in homecoming
So, the Mountaineers
will need some players to
step up and take up the
slack.
Lloyd hopes to see the
Mountaineers come out
strong after playing a good
game despite a loss to de-
fending state champion
Shelby.
“The big thing for us is to
get Tico (Crocker) another
week of practice at quarter-
back,” he said. “That’s
going to help us a lot and it
will be very good for him.
It’s tough for your first start
at quarterback to be against
Kings Mountain quarterback Tico Crocker (2) runs behind the blocking of Cory Hester (55), Gage Kornegay (53) and Chance Frederick 6) against Shelby.
Big plays lead Golden Lions
to win over Mountaineers
Kings Mountain went
into Friday’s rivalry game at
Shelby without the services
of senior quarterback Bran-
don Bell, and the loss of
rushing star Darian McClain
early in the game made the
challenge even tougher as
the Mountaineers dropped
their first loss of the season,
27-7 to the defending state
2A champions.
Bell was hurt during the
previous week’s win over
Burns. Although ' Tico
Crocker played hard the en-
tire 48 minutes, Bell’s run-
ning and passing threat was
missed at quarterback, and
with Crocker, who usually
plays at slot receiver, calling
the signals it also took away
one of the Mountaineers’ top
receiver.
Still, the Kings Mountain
defense played well and the
offense had enough get up
and go that they were driv-
ing for a potential go-ahead
score early in the second pe-
riod when McClain suffered
a high ankle sprain.
The Mountaineer D
stopped the Lions three
times inside the 10 yard line
early on, resulting in two
field goals and a loss of
downs as the Lions built a 6-
0 lead.
Behind the running of
Crocker and McClain, the
Mountaineers were threaten-
ing to take the lead when
McClain’s 13-yard run to
the Lions’ 13 ended with his
injury. Shelby’s Demarrio
Houston intercepted a fourth
down pass in the end zone
and returned it to the 38 yard
line.
A 15-yard horse collar
penalty gave Shelby posses-
sion at the KM 48 and eight
plays later a scrambling QB
R.J. George spotted Devin
Gullatte on a crossing route
and hit him for a 22-yard
touchdown and a 13-0 lead.
Except for two one-play
touchdown drives, the
Mountaineers’ defense held
the Lions in check the entire
second half. Jayden Borders,
son of former Crest and
UNC star Chesley Borders,
caught a 67-yard touchdown
pass on a play that KM cor-
nerback Marquise Carp had
the bead on, but somehow
the ball went through his
hands into Borders’; and
Chad Reid, who finished
with 140 of Shelby’s 166
yards rushing, broke a 39
yard TD run. Both touch-
downs came on the first play
following KM punts.
After Borders’ TD, Kings
Mountain’s Xavier Johnson
returned the kickoff 95 yards
for a touchdown for the
Mountaineers’ only score of
the night.
Although he would have
preferred a victory, Moun-
taineer coach Greg Lloyd
said his players gave it their
all from start to finish.
“We played hard,” he
said. “The defense played
very well. Our offense left a
couple touchdowns out
there. We never could make
the big play catches. We got
deep (in their territory) sev-
eral times and didn’t score.”
It was obvious the of-
fense was not as crisp with-
out Bell, but Coach Lloyd
said he was pleased with
Tico Crocker’s performance
at quarterback.
" “It’s tough for your first
start at quarterback to be
against Shelby,” Lloyd said.
“We couldn’t make many
plays offensively but our de-
fense and special teams
played pretty good.”
Except for Shelby’s three :
long scoring plays and some
big runs by Reid early in the
game, the Mountaineer de-
fense spent most of its time
in the Shelby backfield.
Dwayne Capps, Julian Coul-
ter, Colin Watkins, Trevon
Wilson, Dre Bell, Josh Bell,
Chance Frederick, Dylan
Frederick, Jake Merchant,
Camp and Shawn Adams all
played well. Merchant
sacked George for a huge
ET.
Kings Mountain split end Jake Merchant (15) \woks for a re-
ceiver on an end around, but couldn’t find anyone open and
had to run the ball.
loss to end one Shelby pos-
session and Dre Bell
recorded the Mountaineers’
first blocked punt of the sea-
son.
“Capps had his best
game of the year and Dylan
Frederick had a very good
game,” Lloyd noted.
“Everybody played well on
defense and special teams.
That’s going to make us a
better team. We’ll bounce
back and move on.”
Shelby. He will learn a lot
from that game that will
help us.
“Our running backs will
have to step up,” he said.
“Jair McCluney and Dylan
Frederick need to run hard
and our offensive line needs
to block better and the de-
fense needs to continue to
get better. The defense did a
good job last week. It’s hard
to keep going out there over
and over. I was very pleased
with their effort. The de-
fense has improved every
game.
Kickers’
streak
stopped
by Lions
Kings Mountain’s five-
game winning streak came to
an end Wednesday night at
John Gamble Stadium when
Shelby scored an own goal
with five minutes left in the
second overtime to edge the
Mountaineers 2-1.
“I could not be any prouder
of the effort our players gave
tonight,” said Mountaineer
coach Dan Potter. “The play-
ers really gave their hearts and
souls into their game and I am
so very proud to be their
coach.”
The match was one of the
closest KM-Shelby games in
the last ten years, Potter noted.
KM’s Max Sappia blasted
home a goal just seven min-
utes into the match to give the
Mountaineers an early 1-0
lead. 4
Both teams had scoring op-
portunities before Shelby fi-
nally knotted the score with
1:30 left in the half.
Both keepers made some
saves in the second half, in-
cluding one by KM’s Jarrett
Ledford with 15 minutes re-
maining in regulation.
Shelby hit the crossbar
with 10 minutes remaining in
the first overtime but the re-
bound ended outside the
penalty area.
Shelby made it a clean
sweep in the opener by defeat-
ing the JV Mountaineers 5-0.
Spikers
suffer first
SMAC loss
Kings Mountain High’s
women’s volleyball team
dropped its. first SMAC
game of the season Monday
night at Draughn 25-20, 23-
25, 25-27, 23-25.
The loss leaves the Lady
Mountaineers with a one-
game lead over the Wildcats
heading into the stretch run
of the season.
Kayla Bolt recorded 23
kills and 23 digs for KM.
Angel Peterson had nine
kills.
Sara Pasour had 36 as-
sists and Gracie Hunter had
36 digs. Ashton Withers had
14 digs.
KM’s JV team lost 7-25,
11-25.
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