Rams punch ticket to fourth-consecutive western regional final with win over Brevard

No. 2 Reidsville 24 No. 3 Brevard 7

Community Stadium

Reidsville

Why the Rams wonReidsville didn’t have much success initially after falling behind 7-0 in the first quarter. But they tied the game in the second period and would go on take the lead at the half. The Rams defense really battened down the hatches in the second half, holding Brevard scoreless the rest of the way.

Why the Blue Devils lost

All season long, Brevard’s bread and butter has been a strong run game balanced with a stout defense. They came as advertised and that was the case for three quarters, but Reidsville seemed to figure the Blue Devils out as the game wore on, and the fourth quarter belonged to the Rams as they secured the win with two more TDs.

Stars

Reidsville — Quarterback Kyle Pinnix was 15 of 21 for 195 yards passing. Running back Lionel Long rushed for 124 yards on 19 carries and scored a touchdown. Long has 1,342 yards so far this season and averages 8.9 yards per rush.

Brevard — Both quarterback Baxter Swicegood and tailback Isaiah Rathbone proved tough on the run and kept the chains moving during stretches, but Reidsville’s defense kept them out of the end zone for most of the night. Brevard had 130 yards rushing and 92 passing.

The big play

Tied at 7-7 with just 25 seconds left to play in the half, Pinnix threw a perfect strike on a sideline route to Breon Pass who made an equally impressive clutch reception to put the Rams in field goal range. Four plays later, Anthony Franson split the upright’s for a 24 yard field goal to give the Rams a 10-7 lead as time expired at the end of the second quarter.

Three things we learned

1. The Reidsville defense collectively deserved the MVP award. After giving up a late first quarter touchdown on a 9 play 94 yard scoring drive, the Rams didn’t allow another score for the rest of the night.

2. Pinnix is closing in on a single season RHS passing record. He has thrown 42 touchdowns so far this season and is just three behind of former QB Kendon Doe with 45. He has already amassed 2,885 yards passing the football.

3. Thanksgiving weekend has been particularly good to the Rams over the years. Reidsville has made 21 third round appearances and they are 15-6 on the turkey day weekend.

What they’re saying

“Like I said last week, it’s a great time to be playing. It’s food, fun and football and then getting to play a quality opponent like Brevard the day after Thanksgiving is fun. We had to grit it out and find a way to win and credit our guys, they found a way to get it done . . . I think we found a couple of things that we could run against them and we just kept going back to it and I think that helped us.”

— Jimmy Teague, Reidsville’s head coach

“That’s a really good football team and I thought we gave them everything we had, but we just couldn’t get any more points on the board after the first quarter score. Credit their guys because they played tough, but I’m proud of our guys too. They gave it all they had.”

—Craig Pritchett, Brevard’s head coach

“At the beginning of the game we had a whole lot of adrenaline going on. We had some mistakes happen and we just had to calm down and let the game come to us and that’s really when we started hitting our routes.”

— Kyle Pinnix, Rams quarterback

Records

Blue Devils: 11-3.

Rams: 13-1.

Up next

Reidsville hosts No. 4 West Stokes (11-3), 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6.

Scoring summary

Reidsville 0 10 0 14 — 24

Brevard 7 0 0 0 — 7

B — Isaiah Rathbone runs 1 yard for a touchdown. Parker Grant P.A.T. good. 7-0, 1st 0:47

R — Lionel Long runs 20 yards for a touchdown (Anthony Franson kick). 7-7, 2:46, 2nd

R — Franson kicks 24 yard field goal) 10-7, 0:00. 2nd

R — Stevian Harrison runs 11 yards for a touchdown. 7:19 17-7, 4th

R — Pinnix throws 19 yard touchdown to Jiheem Hooper (Franson kick), 4:08, 24-7 — 4th