By Steve Williams
Zack Gibson had a good reason to celebrate with his family after the game Friday night. He notched his first win as a high school head coach after working 12 years as an assistant.
Gibson was all smiles too after South-Doyle took charge at the start and never trailed in a 41-19 victory over homestanding Austin-East at Samuel P. Anderson Field.
Zack gave his team all of the credit.
“That was fantastic,” he quickly said. “They earned every bit of it. We had two really good weeks of practice preparing for this ball game and they came out ready to go.
“The thing I’m most proud of them for tonight is that it got a little tough there at the end. A-E got some momentum and our kids kept their composure and they battled back and put them away right there at the end of the game to run the clock out.”
Coach Gibson expected a closer game coming in.
“Austin-East is a very talented football team. They’ve got a bunch of kids that can really go and really play. Fortunately for us, our kids came out ready to go and they are really talented too. I’m really proud of our kids for coming out and swinging and keeping the fight through the whole time.”
Senior running back Walter Gould IV capped the Cherokees’ opening drive with a 4-yard touchdown run with 7:48 on the first quarter clock.
The Roadrunners reacted and converted a key fourth-and-eight first down. A short TD pass from sophomore Landon Lightfoot to Jeffery Minor pulled A-E within one point, 7-6, after a missed PAT.
South-Doyle then went on a 19-point scoring spree to go up 26-6 by halftime. Senior Reed Reynolds started it when he leaped over the goal line from the 1 on fourth down early in the second quarter. Senior quarterback Benson Brang added a touchdown pass to Reynolds to make it 19-6. Gould IV battled into the end zone on a 9-yard run with 29 seconds to go and the PAT by Minor gave the Cherokees their 20-point lead at halftime.
Another TD pass, a 10-yarder by Brang to Joseph Hawkins close to the sideline, upped South-Doyle’s lead to 32-6. Brang’s third touchdown pass, an 8-yarder to senior Jeremiah Smith, extended the score to 39-6 with 4:46 remaining.
The Cherokees were close to setting off a running clock, but Austin-East’s Keyvon Booker raced 51 yards around left end for a touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to 39-12.
South-Doyle added a 2-point safety with 5:29 to go.
A-E’s David Weaver recovered a fumble that set up a 25-yard TD throw by Lightfoot to Tysean Gillespie to close out the scoring.
“They executed better than we did,” said Roadrunners Coach Stanton Stevens after the game. And as for Week 2, he added: “We’ve got to practice better. We’ve got to do a better job of working on executing in practice, and if we’ll do that, we’ll have a better chance to win.”
A-E CELEBRATES: The Roadrunners’ 2001 football team was recognized for the state championship they won 25 years ago during Friday night’s home opener. The current A-E head coach, Stanton Stevens, was also the head coach of that team.
