After ringing Concord’s bell, Wonders face Lake Norman

By Bill Kiser

Kannapolis Citizen

A.L. Brown has been riding high, with a pair of high-scoring wins — including a big one over a long-time rival — building its momentum over the last two weeks of the regular season.

The Wonders will need to keep that momentum going Friday night, when they host Lake Norman in the opening round of the state 3AA playoffs.

Game time is 7:30 p.m. at Kannapolis Memorial Stadium. Brown is seeded fourth in the 16-team 3AA West bracket, while the Wildcats are seeded 13th.

Brown — which finished 9-2 and 7-1 in the South Piedmont Conference, good for a share of the league title with Anson County — wrapped its regular-season schedule with a dominating 56-6 win over cross-town rival Concord in the annual “Battle for the Bell” game.

That was the most points scored by a winning team in the 79-year history of the Bell game, which was first played in 1931, and the most lopsided finish since a pair of 41-0 Wonder wins (in 1955 and 1980).

“I don’t think any of us had any idea that it’d be like that,” defensive coordinator Noah Lyon said. “Our kids played really well for the most part — we did give up too much yardage, especially in the second half … but it was an important game, and there wasn’t a whole lot we couldn’t be happy with.”

It was also the most points scored by the Wonders in a single game since they racked up 62 in a win over East Rowan in 2003, and the first time they had back-to-back 50-point games — they beat Porter Ridge 52-0 on Oct. 31 — since the final two games of the 2001 season, when Brown put up 69 and 61 points against East and North Iredell, respectively.

“Our kids have just played real well the last two weeks,” offensive line coach Todd Hagler said. “We really feel like if we play really well, we have a chance against anybody.”

And Brown did it behind the efforts of quarterback Jamill Lott, who ran for a career-high 128 yards and two touchdowns and threw for three more scores (also a career best).

Lott threw for just 93 yards on 5-of-10 completions, but had TD throws of 23 yards to T.J. Johnson, 42 yards to Colby Reid and 14 yards to Zach Massey. He also scored on runs of 39 and 41 yards.

“Oh yeah, he keeps getting better and better,” Hagler said of Lott, who leads Brown in rushing (802 yards), passing (1,129 yards, 13 TDs) and scoring (10 touchdowns). “We just hope he can continue to get better over the coming weeks.”

Travis Riley also ran for two scores (1 and 11 yards), and Jonathan Williams added an 8-yard TD run late in the second quarter as the Wonders jumped out to a 35-6 halftime lead.

Brown’s defense also had another big game. While it gave up 164 yards rushing to Roger Smith and one touchdown on a 9-yard Ben Brill-to-William Propst pass, the Wonders also forced five turnovers, turning that into four touchdowns.

“We were able to get on them from the very start, and that helped,” Lyon said.

Brown will need to have both its offense and defense on a fine edge against Lake Norman (7-4, 5-4 North Piedmont Conference), which wrapped up its most-successful season in school history with a 33-7 win over Northwest Cabarrus last week.

The Wildcats have been an enigma in the NPC this season — they suffered losses to lower-level teams like Carson and South Rowan, but gave league powers West Rowan (a 23-17 double-OT loss) and Mooresville (a 17-7 win) all they could handle.

Lake Norman has been impressive defensively, holding Mooresville’s Jjshaun Pinkston, the state’s leading rusher, to a season-low 67 yards and one touchdown. It also kept West Rowan’s K.P. Parks out of the end zone until the first overtime.

“Defensively, they’re a good football team,” Hagler said. “They shut down Pinkston and did the same to Parks. They’re good, but they lost some games they probably shouldn’t have lost. They’re a quality team, so I don’t know if we got a great draw in the first round.”

Offensively, the Wildcats also throw a number of rushing threats out of a “pistol formation,” in which the quarterback lines up in a shotgun formation, but has one back lined up behind him.

“This is going to be a big test for us,” Lyon said. “They run it so many different ways … and it’s a different style offense. There’s a ton of different plays that look the same, but they’re run differently. We’ve got to prepare for all of them.

“But if our offense can keep playing the way they have, and defensively we not give up too many big plays and keep forcing turnovers, if we can keep doing that, we might be able to make a run at this thing.”