MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. – The winless drought for the Catawba Ridge Copperheads football team dried up in the Saturday heat with a convincing win over the East Gaston Warriors.
Less than 24 hours after having their game postponed Friday night, the Catawba Ridge was back at East Gaston High School taking on the Warriors for their second game of the season. The Copperheads started strong and never looked back snaking its way to a 52-19 win snapping a 10-game losing streak dating back to last season.
The game was scheduled for Friday, Aug. 30, but never got started because of lightning in the area that caused roughly a two-hour delay before the game was postponed until Saturday. The Copperheads had to get up Saturday and come right back to Gaston County for an 11 a.m. kickoff.
“We talked to them about the team that handled that the best would have the advantage,” said Catawba Ridge head coach Zac Lendyak. “With the heat we practiced all week late and the guys said I had prepared them for that. I kind of lucked my way into that. We told them it doesn’t matter if you play Friday night or Saturday morning or Tuesday evening, football is still football.”
Quarterback CJ Couch went 15-of-20 for 239 yards and four touchdowns through the air to lead Catawba Ridge. Preston Cooper caught three passes for 71 yards and a touchdown, Colten McCauley caught two passes for 35 yards and a score, and Darius Sutton caught two passes for 49 yards and a score. However, the most dangerous player for Catawba Ridge was Brayden Wasik, who rushed three times for 37 yards and a touchdown, as well as, caught four passes for 31 yards and a touchdown.
“I really liked what we saw offensively,” Lendyak said. “Defensively, we have to stop the big play. We got to know where we are supposed to be. If we can do that our defense is pretty tough.”
It didn’t take long for the Copperheads to score. After a great initial kickoff return, Couch hit Cooper for a 30-yard touchdown pass on the first play from scrimmage.
After trading punts, the Copperheads defense came up big causing a fumble deep in the Warriors side of the field leading to a Connor McFadden recovery in the end zone for Catawba Ridge.
After another Warrior punt, the Copperheads were able to go 40 yards on six plays capped off by a 5-yard touchdown pass to Wasik from Couch.
East Gaston got the ball opening the second quarter and went 70 yards in nine plays to score on 10-yard touchdown run, but a bad snap nullified the extra point.
Catawba Ridge got it right back with a 92-yard kickoff return touchdown by Josh Dobson.
East Gaston continued to fight to stay in the game, scoring on screen pass that went 48 yards for a score.
Catawba Ridge was able to move the ball well on their next series, but a bad snap made them settle for a 29-yard field goal from Camden Gifford with about three minutes left in the half.
The Warriors were forced to punt on their next drive giving Catawba Ridge a short field starting at the East Gaston 35. Two plays later Couch hit McCauley for a 28-yard touchdown pass.
The final three minutes of the first half seemed to take 30 minutes between officials’ lengthy discussions and big plays as the Warriors scored on a 63-yard pass play to stay within striking distance with 80 seconds left in the half.
The Copperheads kept retaliating as another two-play drive resulted in Sutton catching a 12-yard touchdown pass from Couch with 50 seconds left in the opening half. Couch threw for four first half touchdowns and 203 yards.
The second half went a lot quicker as most of the time the ball was kept on the ground with runs from both teams.
One thing that helped Catawba Ridge throughout the game was good starting positions. In the first drive of the third quarter, Wasik scored on the first play from scrimmage on a 28-yard touchdown run after another poor East Gaston punt.
That score would be all Catawba Ridge had in the second half as they ran the ball more to keep the clock moving and defensively kept East Gaston out of the end zone. After the game, Lendyak told his guys to keep working towards building on the win.
“Momentum worked against us last year, I do believe momentum is legitimate,” he said. “I told them now let’s use this momentum to get some more. Sometimes good things happen and hopefully they keep happening.”
Catawba Ridge improves to 1-1 on the season and will play at Chester next Friday, Sept. 6.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
