news-record.com

GIBSONVILLE - Eastern Guilford was ready to celebrate its homecoming Friday night.

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and the game was moved to Monday, which proved to be quite a letdown for the Wildcats.

Eastern looked uninterested during most of the first quarter, but recovered to score 20 unanswered points in the second quarter and come away with a 34-21 victory over Cedar Ridge.

The Wildcats improved to 5-0 with one more nonconference game to play.

"We had a bye last week and then the game got moved so it made it a little hard," said Eastern coach Scott Loosemore. "The rust finally came off in the second quarter."

They also started getting the ball more to Gerrod Herbin. The Wildcats star running back had three carries for 6 yards in the first quarter, but did turn a screen pass into a 30-yard gain that set up the Wildcats' first score, a 7-yard run by quarterback Jason Davis, with 5:09 to play in the first period.

Despite finishing with 111 yards and two touchdowns, Herbin was frustrated because he had two touchdowns called back because of penalties.

"Playing Monday really threw us off," Herbin said. "Look at the scoreboard. We shouldn't be letting them in the game. Any time that a team thinks they have a chance they are going to play harder. We have to have better practices this week."

Cedar Ridge opened the scoring with a touchdown on its first possession. On the Red Wolves' fifth play from scrimmage, running back Dominic Currie took an inside handoff, broke a couple of tackles and bounced to the outside for a 45-yard touchdown run to give the visitors a quick 7-0 lead.

Eastern took control in the second quarter.

Although he had a 79-yard touchdown run called back for an illegal block, Herbin busted loose on the next play for 26 yards. That was followed by back-to-back runs of 23 and 25 yards by Cedrick Johnson.

After a couple of negative plays, Davis threw a quick swing pass to Billy Morehead, who broke one tackle and sprinted to the end zone for a 22-yard touchdown and a 14-7 lead.

The Wildcats recovered a fumble on the Red Wolves' next possession and Eastern started at the Cedar Ridge 20. After a holding penalty cost Eastern another touchdown, Herbin went straight up the middle on third down for a 14-yard scoring run and a 21-7 lead.

Cedar Ridge cut the lead to 21-14 after a 49-yard pass play to fullback Jake Geary put them in the red zone. Two plays later, Currie took it into the end zone.

But again, the Wildcats had an answer.

After Eastern recovered an onside kick at its own 40-yard line, a 32-yard pass to Morehead had them knocking at the door again. Herbin was once again called on and he delivered with a 3-yard touchdown run with 28 seconds to play before halftime, giving the Wildcats a 27-14 halftime lead.

Eastern actually had one more chance to score in the first half after the Red Wolves fumbled a squib kick. The Wildcats recovered at the Cedar Ridge 28. Davis was sacked on first down and scrambled around on second down, but couldn't get a pass off before time ran out.

"I felt like if we could have scored right there we would have put the game away," Loosemore said. "Then we had a 20-minute halftime because of homecoming and the rust went right back on."

C - Dominic Currie 45 run (Nick Dunn kick)

E -Jason Davis 7 run (Will Gann kick)

E -Billy Morehead 22 pass from Jason Davis (Gann kick)

E - Gerrod Herbin 14 run (Gann kick)

C - Currie 5 run (Dunn kick

E - Herbin 2 run (kick failed)

C - Arnez McDaniel 6 pass from Caleb Goodnight (Dunn kick)

E - Cedrick Johnson 1 run (Gann kick)