At 6-foot-3, tackle Will Welch towers above teammates and coaches.

Simeon Parker is a two-way force for the Cougars.

Brian Wilhite photos.

 

By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

CHINA GROVE — On the same Friday night that Salisbury’s football team threw the ball 38 times, Carson put the ball in the air only three times — for zero yards.

That’s proof, if anyone needed it, that there are different ways to win high school football games.

Carson outscored East Rowan 42-28 — the Mustangs got a TD in the final seconds to tighten things up some — with a 1950s style offense. You can’t be more old school than Carson’s 53 running plays for 435 yards.

“We’ve got about 20 different running plays,” Carson left guard Bryson Shoemaker explained. “But we only used about seven. We believe our run game is strong, and we were going to run those seven plays until they showed us they could stop them. East never did stop us, and if it’s not broke, you don’t have to fix it. They knew exactly what play was coming. They’d see our formation and were yelling out the play before we ran it, but that didn’t mean they could stop it.”

Watching film of rival East (0-8, 0-5), Carson was confident it could run the ball all night. Carson is usually a run-heavy team, last in the county in passing yards, but the plan against the Mustangs was to lean even more in that direction, to go 98 percent run. Offensive line coaches Zach Overcash and Nick Holman assured head coach Jonathan Lowe that the Cougars (3-5, 1-4) could control the game on the ground. That proved to be the case, especially after Carson scored a TD in the final seconds of the first half for a two-TD lead.

“We’ve had a few games this year (Robinson and Northwest Cabarrus) where we were running the ball a lot, trying to possess the ball, run the clock and shorten the game,” right tackle Will Welch said. “But East was a game where we wanted to run the ball uptempo, to run a lot of plays. As an offensive line, we couldn’t wait for the next play. We were creating big holes. Our QB (Griffin Barber) runs hard, and we could sneak for 8 yards. We could pitch it to a back for a sweep, and get 10 yards whether we went right or left.”

Carson got Simeon Parker, one of their most talented players, back for the East game. That made a difference from a confidence standpoint, an emotional standpoint and a physical standpoint. Parker, at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, has an ideal football body. The junior could play almost anywhere on the field on either side of the ball. He’s getting some practice reps now at running back.

“His motor is non-stop,” Welch said. “He has crazy energy and he’s a tremendous blocker. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone more ready to go than he was on Friday.”

“Put Parker at tight end and have him destroy everyone in front of him,” Lowe said. “That was the biggest part of our game plan. Our other five linemen did exactly what they have been coached to do by Overcash and Holman, two of the best assistants in the conference. They have built these guys up. Our offensive line is smart and disciplined.”

Parker also anchors the defensive line as a two-way player, but he had plenty of energy left to create mayhem on offense.

“I was coming back from a pretty bad sprained ankle that kept me out three weeks,”Parker said. “So I did have a lot of energy. I wanted to make a mark.”

Parker is glad that he played jayvee as a freshman. He feels he progressed a lot more by playing than he would have as a varsity backup. He played tackle on offense as a sophomore. The plan was for him to play guard this season, but Carson lost some players.

“Circumstances happened,” Parker said. “But I really like being able to play tight end. We ran one sweep to the sideline and I drove a guy back 20 yards.”

Freshman back Damo’n Broussard, who scored the key TD at the end of the first half, had a career game with 17 carries for 174 yards, basically doubling his production for the entire season. Rosean Perkins, Trip Marcum and Barber all had serious rushing yards.

The Carson offensive line includes Braxton Deland at left tackle; Shoemaker at left guard; Griffin Yarbrough at center; Ridge Barger at right guard; Welch at right tackle, plus Parker, who is wearing jersey  No. 3 now, at tight end.

The line includes interesting personalities and multi-sport athletes. Shoemaker is a baseball catcher and looks like a sturdy one at 5-foot-7, 215 pounds.

“I think being a baseball catcher helps my flexibility some for football,” he said. “But I’m not ever going to be the tallest guy out there.”

Welch is one of the tallest guys out there. He has unusual dimensions for a tackle. He stands 6-foot-3, but he is lean of the position at 190 pounds. Employed as a tight end last season, he’s got enough athletic ability that he’s one of the school’s top tennis players.

“There was a big change for me mentally, more than physically, as far as moving from tight end to tackle,” Welch said. “But the coaches have really helped me learn the position. Now I really like tackle and hanging out with my o-line boys.”

All of Carson’s offensive linemen have taken their lumps, but they’ve learned from it. Now Lowe sees the 0-line as one of the team’s strengths.

“We have learned a lot,” Shoemaker said. “One thing you learn quickly when you’re playing guard or center is that if you get beat in the middle, the play is over. So I try to take a very strong role. I try to block my guy and not get beat.”

Carson linemen didn’t get beat often at East.

“Our o-line pummeled East all night, and it was beautiful,” Lowe said. ‘There’s 1:18 left in the game and our center (Yarbrough) comes up to me and asks if we can go to our hurry-up offense. It’s good to see that kind of confidence because when this group adds confidence to being smart and disciplined, they’re going to start doing incredible things.”