Living up to the hype
Around 7:25 on Friday night, from my vantage point in the press box at West Forsyth, I finally stopped gawking at the traffic jam on Lewisville-Clemmons Road. The sea of humanity spilling into Titan Stadium was amazing — the horseshoe on the entrance end to the field wound up being so deep with spectators that it reminded me of how I avoided such a crowd at the 1999 US Open in Pinehurst to witness Payne Stewart’s winning putt on the 18th hole — but that’s another story.
It turned out the Reynolds-West Forsyth game lived up to the hype and then some, and boy was it well-supported. Before the end of the first quarter, an allotment of 4,000 tickets had been sold, and T.R. Richards, West’s athletics director, had to make a trip to the school office to get more. Richards wound up guessing that 6,000 people were inside the stadium, it might have been more, and still others stood outside the gates by the gym and looked on from a distance.
Reynolds 14-9 victory — specially delivered by two Craven Knotts-to-Jake Gainey touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, the last one coming with 27 seconds left — had all kinds of sidebars.
Midway through the first quarter, I heard a thud behind me in the press box, turned around, and it was a headset from a Reynolds’ assistant coach. He soon climbed down the ladder from atop the pressbox and I could hear him muttering. Yes, the Reynolds coaches had their headsets malfunction before the game had barely gotten underway. The coaches wound up having to improvise and use hand signals the rest of the way.
The game started at 7:30. At 8:02, I got this text message from my friend Marc Pruitt, who often covers games for the Journal:
“People still parking over a mile away to get in. I’ve never seen so many cars for a fb game in Forsyth County.”
For the majority of the game, West Forsyth moved the ball well but often short circuited. The Titans lost two fumbles in the first half, and the Demons picked off two West passes in the second half. Defensively, West confounded Reynolds for most of three quarters, flooding the shallow secondary to discourage Reynolds short passing game, although Knotts barely missed connecting on two fly patterns that likely would have gone for touchdowns.
At halftime, West made a PA announcement opening up the scoreboard end of the field to spectators to ease the crush on the other end.
So West entered the fourth quarter leading 9-0, and looking very much on the way to 10-0. But Knotts hit Gainey on a 31-yard post pass with eight minutes left to help trim the lead to 9-7. Reynolds got the ball back at its 17 with two minutes left, and on first down, a West defender was called for hitting Gainey out of bounds after an incomplete pass. This call was not in the least well-received in the West stands, or the West sidelines.
But Knotts directed his team to the West 42 with little more than 40 seconds left. On first down, he tried Gainey deep down the right side, but Nygee Lockhart of West outraced Gainey and the pass was incomplete. On second down, Lockhart broke up a pass for Gainey 25 yards downfield.
So what did Reynolds do on third down? Knotts went right back to Gainey down the right sideline. This time, with Lockhart providing seemingly perfect coverage, Gainey jumped a little bit higher and reached with both hands over Lockhart’s right shoulder. Gainey came down with the ball, Lockhart fell down, and Gainey waltzed into the end zone.
Game stolen.
De’Vyne Julius of Reynolds intercepted Patrick Midkiff’s last pass of the night to end it, and soon after, Reynolds students scaled the railing and stormed the field, engulfing the players. Players for both teams were crying and there was a massive traffic jam building in the parking lot.
Reynolds won’t scare any playoff opponents when they take the field in a couple of weeks, it’s just not a visually intimidating team, but the Demons are every bit the “Little Engine that Could.”
Reynolds is 10-0 and 4-0 in the Central Piedmont 4-A following last week’s epic game. The Demons beat Reagan this week and they are outright CPC champs. West needs to lick its wounds and rebound quickly for Friday’s home game against Mount Tabor, a team that will likely see a streak of seven straight years of winning or sharing a conference title come to an end.
Finally, a game that was worth the buildup.