By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

LANDIS— A serious melee broke out in West Rowan’s football game at South Rowan on Saturday.

West won the South Piedmont Conference game, 40-6, and the Falcons still haven’t lost to the Raiders since 2000. Senior Evan Kennedy, a receiver/running back who is a Division I prospect, scored all six West touchdowns, a powerful performance that shouldn’t be overshadowed by the extracurricular tussles that broke out with 6:17 left in the third quarter.

“We had a kid have a historic game, and I don’t want that to get lost with some unfortunate things that happened,” West head coach Louis Kraft said. “Yes, it was a crappy night in some respects. But I do think our coaches did a good job of maintaining control of our sideline when thing got crazy.”

A Raider had his helmet jerked from his head, which seemed to be the trigger point. Multiple scuffles followed, with punches thrown. It took quite a while for officials and law enforcement to bring things under control.

The altercation could cost both teams players in the weeks ahead. Officials wrote down names, and there were ejections from the contest, although ejections sometimes are reduced to mere disqualifications, and players are allowed to return to the field the following week.

South’s offense and West’s defense were on the field when tempers spilled over.

“I’m disappointed in the way things happened,” South head coach Chris Walsh said. “But we can learn from it.”

West dominated the game, especially the first half, which was played almost exclusively in South Rowan territory. West’s special teams were very good at covering kickoffs and excellent at fielding and returning punts, so the Falcons’ offense constantly had short fields to work with and the Raiders constantly had terrible field position.

It could’ve been 50-0 at halftime, but South’s defense came up with four first-half turnovers, with three of them near its goal line.

Macon Fuller, Gavin Bisco and Cameron Barth intercepted passes. Conner Richards forced a fumble that Owen Smith, a linebacker who made 12 tackles, recovered.

“On the interceptions, we had one bad throw, one bad read and one jump ball that their guy came down with,” Kraft said. “And we had a lot of penalties that kept us from finishing off drives.”

West (3-2, 2-0) scored after the opening kickoff, overcoming two penalties and putting the ball in the end zone on an 11-yard run by Kennedy.

After South went three-and-out the first time it had the ball, West started on the South 41, following a punt, and Kennedy picked up his second TD.

That pattern continued. When Kennedy scored his fourth TD with 1:19 left in the first half on a physical, 13-yard run, it was 26-0, and all over but the shouting.

A West sack terminated South’s first possession of the second half, and the Falcons scored immediately on a 71-yard burst by Kennedy for a 33-0 lead.

The brawl erupted on South’s next possession.

When order was restored, South moved the ball, but was stopped at West’s 18.

As the fourth quarter got under way, West QB Brant Graham threw a 60-yard scoring pass to Kennedy for a 40-0 lead.

Kennedy went over 2,000 receiving yards for his career. He’s the ninth in Rowan County history to reach that milestone and the third Falcon. The others are Kortez Weeks and Jalen Houston.

Brooks Overcash threw a 33-yard scoring pass to Jadon Moore to put South on the scoreboard with 5:45 left in the game.

“Offensively, we looked better than we have in a few weeks,” Walsh said. “We had some drives, but then we would stall in West territory. Our QB (Overcash) had a good game, but we missed scoring chances. Still, a lot of our young guys played very hard and very well.”

Overcash was 16-for-25 for 163 yards, his best game of the season, despite a furious West pass rush that racked up sacks in the second half. Moore had four catches for 53 yards to lead South’s receivers.

“Overcash is tough, he moves well enough, and he can throw it when he’s got time,” Kraft said. “Coach Walsh is doing a good job with that team. He’s got a good perspective on things, and he understands what they can do well. They should win some.”

Overcash’s right arm had to carry South’s offense, as West’s defense stuffed South’s running game. Freshman Jayden Arthur had to battle for all of the 23 yards he netted on 15 carries.

“Other than the Mooresville game when everything went wrong, our defense has played lights-out all season,” Kraft said. “We’ve got some experienced guys on the back end. They can cover. That leads to sacks.”

Graham connected on several big plays and threw for 219 yards for the Falcons. West came close to 500 yards of offense, with 270 rushing yards. Star tailback Jaylen Neely rested, as the Falcons are trying to get him back to 100 percent. That made Kennedy the workhorse ball-carrier, and he got help from youngster Devaunh White.

Kennedy’s six-TD game puts him in select company. The only other Falcon to score six TDs in a game was KP Parks, who did it twice. Parks accomplished the feat in 2007 against Northwest Cabarrus and repeated it in 2009 against Statesville.

While the county record is seven TDs (North Rowan’s Malcolm Wilson in 2019), this was only the 10th six-TD game recorded in county football history. That goes all the way back to Landis’ Billy Ray Barnes’ who put it in the end zone a half-dozen times against Rockwell in 1952.

South plays at Central Cabarrus next, while the Falcons will face a big challenge at Northwest Cabarrus.