Eastern Randolph can’t overcome sloppy play, injuries in opener

RAMSEUR — Eastern Randolph High School is playing a demanding non-league schedule. After a season-opening loss to Southern Alamance last Friday night, those non-league encounters are getting bigger and bigger.

The Wildcats will be looking to avoid their first 0-2 start since the 2017 season when they travel to Randleman Friday night, against a Tigers team that is also seeking its first win after a loss to Providence Grove to open the season.

It’s hard to fathom that one of these two proud and very successful programs will be 0-2 after Friday night.

“We just have to have a great week of practice and put it together Friday night in Randleman,” ER Coach Burton Cates said after the Wildcats dropped a 28-7 decision to Southern Alamance to open the new campaign. “When we get everyone back healthy, we will be fine.”

Playing without a number of key players, most notably James Combs, a strong running back and the Four Rivers Conference defensive player of the year last season, the Wildcats couldn’t sustain drives as bad snaps, turnovers and penalties stopped numerous drives while setting up the Patriots with short fields.

“We gotta find where we believe I don’t need to be the one to make a play or I don’t have to have the ball to be successful,” Cates said. “We’ve got to work on being unselfish.”

A couple of communication problems between the center and quarterback led to two SA scores, one after recovering a fumble on the ER 1-yard line and another that resulted in ER having to punt from its own end zone. That led to a 49-yard scoring drive for the Patriots that erased a 7-6 lead the Wildcats had after the first quarter.

“The first quarter was about what I expected,” Cates said after watching Kobe Walker score on a 6-yard run and Gio Perez adding the PAT for a 7-6 lead at the 5:43 mark. “We handled their running back (Sincere Thompson, who rushed for 1,511 yards and scored 22 touchdowns last season) pretty good in the first half. You can’t give them the ball on the 1-yard line. That put us in a hole. Not capitalizing on drives in the first half that looked good at the start and ended up negative was disappointing.”

Mistakes proved costly for ER as every time the Wildcats looked like they would fight their way back into contention, a penalty would stall the drive.

An interception on the first drive of the second half set the Patriots up in ER territory once again and a 1-yard TD run by Thompson, his second of three in the game, pushed the Patriots’ lead to 22-7.

A personal foul call against ER nullified a big run by Kobe Walker as that third-quarter drive ended on downs and SA used 14 consecutive running plays to go 87 yards for their final score.

“We knew they would try and keep the ball and they did in the second half,” Cates said. “They had a lot of plays in the second half. We just couldn’t make a stop.”

Walker rushed for 124 yards for the Wildcats.

Quarterback Cade McCallum, who missed the entire preseason up until the Monday before the game, had little time to throw and was sacked numerous times. He finished 9 of 19 through the air for 103 yards. 

“Game reps for Cade will be very important,” Cates said. “This was his first time going against live bullets today. He’ll be fine.”