Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Brian Pitts

Davie Enterprise Record

Although Davie’s varsity football team is reeling from back-to-back losses, this is a program with considerable long-term potential. The varsity will return a fair share of playmakers in the fall and look at the junior varsity squad. It improved to 4-0 by obliterating East Forsyth 41-8 in Kernersville on April 1, and three of the victories haven’t been close.

The 41-8 spread tells us the JV offense continued to soar – it put up 44, 48 and 34 points in the other wins – and it also tells us the mighty defense did its bit again. The War Eagles have allowed 35 points in four games, and Reagan is the only one that has scored more than eight.

“The offense has some special players and the defense has a lot of high-energy guys,” assistant coach Blaine Nicholson said. “We have a lot of gritty players on defense.”

East shocked Davie on the first play from scrimmage, scoring on a 65-yard run. The hosts added a two-point conversion to take an 8-0 lead. Davie’s first offensive series was not successful.

From that point on, however, Davie’s answer was loud and clear. Ty Miller devastated the East defense with 203 passing yards. The freshman completed 6 of 10 and four resulted in touchdowns, a sensational 33.8 average per completion.

Sophomore Aidan Froelich had half the catches as he finished with 59 receiving yards, including an 18-yard score. Freshman Carter Helton burned East on both of his receptions, scoring on 51- and 61-yarders. And Bryan Argueta’s catch resulted in a 32-yard TD.

“We’ve got a stud at quarterback,” Nicholson said. “You know how you’re never supposed to miss inside on fades, seam routes and takes. He was putting them on the money and hitting the guys in stride. The wind was horrific, and he had a tight spiral. He was cutting through the wind with that spiral. He’s tough, man.”

And then: “(Miller) pulled it a couple of times (and ran). He’s not pulling it to evade anybody. He’s trying to truck people. We’ve got to be smart about that. In short-yardage situations, to have to defend Ty and Markel (Summers) is really, really tough.”

Summers had a hard-earned 56 yards on 19 carries, scoring once and doing most of his work in the first half. Helton did all of his ball carrying in the second half and he did so wonderfully (eight carries for 58 yards).

“Markel is a tough tackle,” Nicholson said. “The first guy almost never brings him down. He’s going to be a lot to handle the older he gets.”

There’s more to the story after Davie improved to 3-0 in the Central Piedmont Conference after playing its first game in 15 days. The defensive effort was magnificent after the first East snap.

Nicholson marveled at d-linemen Jake Cass (6-4, 375), Hunter Testa, Dane Porter and edge rushers John Stokes and Brandon Wood.

“Jake is pretty much shutting it down on the inside,” he said of the nose guard. “He’s getting to where he can move laterally pretty well. He had a bunch of good plays. Hunter had a really good game (at nose guard). He had a lot of tackles for loss. Dane had a couple of tackles for loss. The DL in general has been impressive this year. We’re really deep up front.

“They can’t really block John on the JV level. He’s pretty tough. The other edge guy (Wood) did really good stuff. He was chasing a lot of stuff down from the back side.”

Then there’s linebacker Will Burris and safeties Bryson Parker and Logan Yokley.

“Will stepped up,” he said. “He played a different linebacker spot than he had been, and he’s flying to the ball. He made a bunch of tackles. Bryson probably had his best game of the year. He had a scoop-and-score for a touchdown. Logan played well on the outside, coming to meet their lead backs and box it in to the rest of the guys.”

Notes: This was Davie’s third win by at least 33. … Davie has won 11 of 13 games, including a 7-2 record in 2019.