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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

CLEMMONS — Friday night’s game at Jerry Peoples Stadium in Clemmons was billed as two undefeated teams during the early portion of the season.  

After three games, Weddington throttled West Forsyth 48-13 to remain undefeated.  

Weddington (3-0), which won last year’s NCHSAA Class 4-A state championship, led 17-13 at halftime after a late field goal. Then, Weddington dominated the third quarter to pull away.  

“(It was) 17-13 at halftime and third quarter, it was a snowball effect,” Coach Kevin Wallace of West Forsyth said. “We couldn’t get out of our way. Everything that could go wrong went wrong – fumbles, turnovers. I think we had four or five dropped picks defensively.  

“So, those things you can’t do against good teams and they capitalized on them. And they capitalized on them quick.” 

The turnovers compounded themselves. 

“I mean we fumbled inside our 20 I think three teams, might’ve been four, at the end of the game…,” Wallace said. “So, there’s nothing. I mean we fumbled our kickoff; we fumbled a quarterback sack. I think the quarterback fumbled twice. Yeah, it was a snowball effect that we couldn’t get out of the way, and you can’t have those things when you’re playing good teams.” 

The coaching staff for the Titans (2-1) is searching for answers after Friday night’s second-half performance. 

“We relied on how to overcome adversity and what we’ve got to do and all this stuff,” Wallace said. “How we handle what we say, how we act. We just couldn’t, it just seemed to keep going and going. Some things were out of our control, some things we could control. It was just one of those – I think I told them, it might be the worst third quarter I’ve ever seen in football.” 

The Warriors scored on a 2-yard rushing touchdown by Ryan Goldstein to help make it 24-13. The Warriors added to the lead with a 35-yard field goal just a minute later to extend the lead to 27-13.  

The Warriors scored on a 38-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Gregory Fee to receiver Jalen Grullon with 7 minutes left in the third quarter to help push the lead to 34-13. And with 4 minutes to go in the third quarter, Goldstein threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Eamon Murphy to help extend the lead to 41-13. The Warriors added another touchdown before the end of the third quarter. 

“It was very, very, very bad football in the third quarter,” Wallace said. 

It was a scratching-heads moment for the team. 

“More of effort, what we were thinking, that we couldn’t feel bad for ourselves,” Wallace said. “We had to keep fighting and that was one of our big emphasis of you can’t feel sorry for yourself now. You’ve got to keep fighting and keep your head up, and see what you’ve got left in the tank.” 

Wallace and the rest of the coaching staff know what it needs to clean up the remainder of the season. 

“It was a little bit of everything,” Wallace said. “I mean, we go back to the drawing board, we do ball security every week. We’ll emphasize it even more. You know, we really, knock on wood, haven’t had any issues with, except I think one true fumble. Other ones have been bad snaps or something, but a true fumble, knocked out of a kid’s hand.  

“So, they got us. They, I mean they’re a good team. They’ve got three Division I (players).” 

West Forsyth led 6-0 after a touchdown by CJ Blevins, but Weddington answered with a touchdown and an extra-point kick to take a 7-6 lead. West Forsyth took a 13-7 lead, but Goldstein threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Gage Hudson with 9 minutes to go in the second quarter to tie it. Weddington added the extra-point kick to take a 14-13 lead.  

West Forsyth turned the ball over just before halftime and Weddington nailed a 32-yard field goal with under a minute remaining before halftime to push the lead to 17-13. 

“It was other plays that led up to the field goal,” Wallace said. “I wouldn’t say that was sort of the back-breaking (moment). You know, we preach to them every week the middle 8 – the last 4 (minutes) of the second quarter and the first 4 in the third. And we just didn’t play in the middle 8 at all. They won the middle 8 and won the game.” 

Despite the turn of events before halftime, Wallace felt pretty good about the first half. 

“I knew we needed to get a stop coming out,” he said. “If we would’ve gotten a stop and not given up a score, I think that would’ve really helped us. But we gave up a score and now we’re down at that point, I think 9. So, it’s not terrible, but we just came out, I don’t know – three-and-outs killed us offensively. Some of our players got exposed with some of their talented players.  

“They did some things, good coaching, that created some mismatches in their favor.” 

The closeness of the first quarter and the uneven third quarter show where the Titans need to improve. 

“I think we’ve got to learn to play the third quarter,” Wallace said. “I think that’s been our Achilles’ heel for a year and a half now is the third quarter. We preach to the kids. We’ve tried to take it to practice. The third quarter has been – our games that we lose our third quarter has been atrocious.  

“So, we have worked on coming out of halftime the same mindset of starting a game. And that’s been our biggest emphasis. We’ll come back to the drawing board again and try to emphasize it more and more because our games that we’ve come out of half and played well were really good.” 

West Forsyth is off this week before its Central Piedmont 4-A opener on Sept. 20 at Mount Tabor (2-1).  

“So, for us, we’re 2-1 coming out, going into conference play,” Wallace said. “You know, so it’s not the end of the world. And I think that’s what some of our kids have got to realize that, yes, are we mad how we played? Yes. We did some good things and some really, really bad things that can’t happen against good teams.” 

Even though the Titans are off this week, Wallace said the team was scheduled to watch film on Monday, followed by light practices on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  

“We’ll start on Tabor probably right away,” Wallace said. “We’ll work on some of our fundamentals and we’ll slow down on the Tabor install. It won’t be like a normal week since we’ve got some time, but we’ve got to work on some fundamentals and some things went to kind of expose that we were trying to hide. And we’ll try and get better each day and go from there and make corrections. 

“You know, we’ve got to rebound. Our kids have got to understand, that’s (Weddington) a nonconference game. What matters is coming up next. The next seven weeks is what truly matters.” 

Mount Tabor is one of the better teams in the conference. It lost to powerhouse Greensboro Grimsley 34-12 in the season opener, defeated North Forsyth 42-0, and defeated Greensboro Page 48-6 this past Friday.  

The Spartans, who finished 8-5 overall and 4-3 in the conference last season, lost to the Titans 40-14 in Clemmons.  

However, that was last year. Mount Tabor has two of the most dynamic players in North Carolina – senior Shamarius “Snook” Peterkin, who is a 6-foot-3, 170-pound defensive back and wide receiver, who has committed to Virginia Tech, and senior JaDon Blair, a 6-5, 220-pound free safety and wide receiver, who has committed to play at Notre Dame. 

“We’ve just got to scheme for them,” Wallace said. “They’re going to make plays, but we just can’t let them win the game, so that’s the big thing.”