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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

CLEMMONS — Once again, running back Darell Paige and quarterback Riley Horton provided all the spark West Forsyth needed as it routed Reynolds 56-20 in a Central Piedmont 4-A game Friday night at Jerry Peoples Stadium.

Horton threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, and Paige ran for two touchdowns.

“He’s explosive. (If) he touches the ball he can go,” said Coach Kevin Wallace of West Forsyth (7-2, 5-1) about Paige. “He’s explosive. I mean, that’s why, we want to give him the ball a little bit more. His hands have been a little shaky, but we’ve got him in the backfield, we can just hand it to him and let him run because he can go the distance every time he touches it.”

Paige started because starter CJ Blevins didn’t play Friday because of an illness.

“He had viral infections/common cold,” Wallace said. “He practiced one day. He was out a lot. He’d kind of been fighting it all week.”

But it wasn’t just Paige that led to Friday’s dominance against Reynolds (4-5, 2-4). At one point West Forsyth led 40-0 early in the second half.

The Titans scored first on a 45-yard touchdown pass from Horton to Hunter Cruise with 8:08 left in the first quarter, but Horton’s pass for two points failed to keep it 6-0.

With 3:44 left in the first quarter Horton galloped in for a 1-yard touchdown run and Kosta Dupuy added the extra-point kick to help extend the lead to 13-0.

At the end of the first quarter, Horton flicked a screen pass to Paige, who scored from 10 yards to help push the lead to 20-0.

The Titans kept pouring it on after Kale Vest caught an 8-yard touchdown pass with 3:49 left in the second quarter, but the pass for two points failed to keep it 26-0.

“We’re still trying to teach our kids to not play with that front-runner attitude,” Coach Joe Davidyock of the Demons said. “When it’s only going good for us, it’s only good. Like, we’ve got to play our brand no matter what’s going on.”

The Titans weren’t done scoring before halftime. Paige scored on a 34-yard touchdown run with 1:59 left in the second quarter to help extend the lead to 33-0.

“I thought he did well,” Wallace said of Paige. “He’s just got to be comfortable with it. You know, we were just planning on using him sparingly, a little bit more than we have. Hoping that him and CJ could’ve gone a little bit this week and done more with
Darell. But as of (Thursday) we knew we had to go with Darell fulltime.

“Darell is good at just; he doesn’t fully know everything in the backfield yet. So, it’s having to having to give him hints and all that stuff. But he played well. He’s explosive with the ball.”

West Forsyth scored again on its first drive of the third quarter on a 56-yard touchdown pass from Horton to Jailyn Moore to help extend the lead to 40-0 with 8:22 left.

“He’s gotten better,” Wallace said of Horton’s improvement on deep passes. “The last couple weeks we’ve seen it, so hopefully we can progress next week, too.”

Just 2 points shy of a running clock, Reynolds started a mini comeback. Mac Murphy caught a 22-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tommy Elrod with 6:01 left in the third quarter, but the extra-point kick failed.

Just 45 seconds into the fourth quarter Elrod threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Joe Crowley, but Christian Frierson’s run for two points failed to keep it 40-12.

“That was my fear from pregame,” Wallace said. “We were not very focused all day. We start from the bell rang from the first period on. So, we really had to get on them in our walk through, in our pregame and everything. And they responded in the first half.

“I mean, we go down and score every possession for the first half except for that bad 2-minute drill. We got on our kids about that offensively. I just think they were just too confident coming out in the second half.”

The Demons inched even closer after Tyler Cronan intercepted Jerrell Crawford’s pass and raced 34 yards for a touchdown 9:11 left in the fourth quarter to help trim the lead to 40-20.

“It takes a couple plays for us to get going, but once we got it going they feel a little life,” Davidyock said. “We didn’t do anything differently adjustment-wise. The second half, we just started making plays and trusting in what we were doing.”

West Forsyth regained the momentum on its ensuing drive after Paige scored an 8-yard run with 7:58 left to help push the lead to 47-20.

Paige finished with 171 yards rushing on 14 carries, and West Forsyth finished with 278 yards on 35 carries.

The Titans tacked on another touchdown after Ja’Mare Shepard scored on a 20-yard run with 4:04 left to help make it 54-20.

“Give (Reynolds) credit, they hit some plays,” Wallace said. “I don’t know if it’s looking ahead to next week (at East Forsyth). Probably. Some of our kids are, but you come out and you score every possession, we shut them down except for one or two first downs in the first half.

The Titans even tacked on a safety with just over 2 minutes remaining to make it 56-20.

The Titans finished with 336 total yards and the Demons had 140.

“Everyone’s kind of feeling themselves,” Wallace said. “I think we starting putting in some other kids that might not have been up to date with the scheme, or gameplan. So, that cost us a little bit but, you know, we had to get our composure. We lost our composure.”

West Forsyth is indeed scheduled to travel to Kernersville on Friday with a game against cross-county rival East Forsyth (9-0, 6-0), which is leading the conference to close out the regular season.

However, even though West Forsyth lost to Mount Tabor earlier this season, West Forsyth can gain a share of the conference title with a win against East Forsyth.

“For us, we need it for a share of the conference championship,” Wallace said. “So, that’s a big one for us. Our kids, we kind of put ourself in a hole with a loss to Tabor. So, we’ve got to bounce back, we’ve got to fight back to have a shot at the conference
championship.”

Last year, in Wallace’s first season as head coach at West Forsyth, East Forsyth won 45-35 in Clemmons.

“It’s their senior night, it’ll be the TV game. It’ll be all that stuff,” Wallace said. “Our kids, you know, and it’s going to be drilled into them. It’s been on my board since last week, last year, a minute, 21 left in the third quarter we’re up by 11. We blew it. So, we’ve got to finish the game. We’ve got to finish it, and what we (Friday against Reynolds), but we’ll be on them. I think they’ll be hungry. We’ll be ready for it.”

The Eagles are coached by Todd Willert, who has won two state championships. They also have senior Bryce Baker at quarterback, who has committed to play at North Carolina. In addition, they a stout offensive line with offensive playmakers, and a stellar defense.

“It’s going to be hard,” Wallace said. “They’ve got a really good offense, really good players. They’ve been blowing teams out and shutting teams out. So, they’re well coached.

“…It’s a good rivalry. There’s a lot of respect between coaches and players, but our kids are going to be hungry. So, we’re going to see.”