By Jack Veltri
Correspondent
YORK — With the high school football regular season one week away, Catawba Ridge and Fort Mill both played their final tune-up scrimmages as the two teams, along with four other schools, took part in the Bill Pate White Rose Football Classic at York Comprehensive High School.
The Copperheads faced Westwood and scored their only touchdown of the game late in the second half to earn a victory. Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets played in the final game of the night against York and started off strong, but eventually fell behind before bad weather ended the game early.
Copperheads score late to pull away
Something had to give. At some point, one team would a find way into the end zone, right? Catawba Ridge and Westwood couldn’t remain scoreless forever.
Deep into the second half, the Redhawks were moving the ball into Copperhead territory. But their drive stalled out after going for it on fourth down and coming up short.
With under three minutes to go, Catawba Ridge’s offense got the ball back and started to put together some fine plays. Then, things finally clicked. Senior quarterback CJ Couch dumped a short pass off to his left to senior wide receiver Braylen Burgis, who got enough blocking in front of him to find a hole and run free into the end zone for what would be the game-winning score.
By no means was it pretty. But regardless, the Copperheads found a way and picked up a 7-0 win over Westwood.
“You want to win no matter what you do — scrimmage, jamboree — when you’re keeping score, you want to win,” said Catawba Ridge head coach Zac Lendyak. “The offense showed that they’re willing to stick with it. Definitely had some bumps in the road. It’s still early in the season. But to show that we could pick it up and get going and score right there at the end, it’s fun to win games like that.”
Outside of the late touchdown, it was a tough night offensively for Catawba Ridge. Right out of the gate, Couch bobbled a high snap on the second play of the game and couldn’t fall on it as Westwood recovered. On the team’s next drive, they drove deep into Redhawk territory. However, Westwood came away with another turnover on a pass that tipped off the hands of senior tight end Brady Ambrose.
It wasn’t just the turnovers that were the issue. The offense could never get into much of a rhythm until the end of the game. Couch finished 8-for-18 passing, but his receivers dropped five passes. And the Copperheads had seven penalties, all resulting in a lot of lost drives.
“Penalties and drops are tremendously hard to overcome. Those are mental mistakes,” Lendyak said. “If we catch the ball when it’s thrown to us and we don’t jump offsides, we’re going to be okay. For us, once we start to get into that groove and that rhythm, CJ kind of calms down and things get better — that’s definitely what we want to try to do offensively.”
The one constant throughout the night, though, was the defense. Drive after drive, Catawba Ridge continued to thwart any momentum Westwood tried to gain. The Copperheads finished with three sacks, but more importantly, they held the Redhawks to a big goose egg, which outweighed everything else for Lendyak.
“I love where they’re at. They understand what Coach Russ is wanting them to do, and they’re flying to the ball. They trust their coaches, they trust each other. By no means is it perfect. But again, when you’ve got a guy like Lewis Price that can kind of disrupt everything, that makes the DBs job easier, linebacker’s jobs easier. So, we’ve got big expectations for him.
“But they’re still really young. Those DBs are all sophomores and juniors right now, so they’re still learning to play. So, we expect to see growth each and every week.”
Catawba Ridge will open the regular season at home against Chapin next Friday, Aug. 23.
Yellow Jackets come up short in a rain soaking scrimmage
It would’ve been hard to script a better start than the one Fort Mill got off to.
On the game’s first play, York quarterback Tayshon Freeman ran to his right trying to pick up a few yards. But the Yellow Jackets forced a fumble on the play, which junior linebacker Joseph Duey picked up and took the other way for a 25-yard touchdown.
However, that would end up being the lone highlight of the night for Fort Mill in what would be a weather-shortened 10-7 loss to the Cougars.
For the most part, the Jackets played relatively well on defense. York responded after the fumble on its next drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Freeman to wide receiver Jamarion McCoy. But after that, Fort Mill locked back in.
On York’s next offensive drive, Fort Mill made a huge stop on fourth and goal with a pass breakup from senior defensive back Jeremiah McNeil. The Cougars settled for a go-ahead field goal, which would end up being the difference in the game.
Later in the second half, York found itself back inside Fort Mill territory and looked poised to finish off the drive with another score. But with the rain coming down, a bad handoff was recovered by junior linebacker Gray Patterson
On the flip side, the Jackets offense had a lot of trouble moving the ball down the field. There were flashes of some good runs, but junior quarterback Quinn Kelly couldn’t seem to connect with his receivers. By the time they tried to get something going, it was too late. Lightning was in the area and forced the game to be called with just over five minutes to play.
Fort Mill will travel to Ballantyne Ridge, a brand-new high school entering its first football season, and play next Friday, Aug. 23, at 7 p.m.
