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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Desperation is a powerful force, and dropping to 0-3 in the CPC would have been a bad feeling for Davie’s JV football team.

The War Eagles dug deep and avoided a close loss after falling short 14-13 to Reynolds and 21-18 to East Forsyth the previous two weeks. They rallied from a 10-0 deficit and slipped past Reagan 12-10 in Pfafftown on Oct. 3.

“I said: ‘Look, if you’re not focused going into this game, we will have another one-score loss,’” coach Spencer Pasciolla said after Davie improved to 4-2 overall and 1-2 in the CPC. “It was really nice that we were the winner by one score this week.”

The first quarter ended with Reagan in control at 10-0.

“They had a pretty good running game and some pretty good athletes,” Pasciolla said. “One went down pretty early. I hope he is OK, but it was advantageous to us.”

Davie got on the board when Colin Harrison hit Jayce Bentley with a 16-yard completion, and it was 10-6 at halftime.

Bentley added a layer to his huge season, catching six of Harrison’s seven completions and gaining 83 yards. Ian Patton had the other catch.

“I couldn’t see (the TD pass) real well from my vantage point, but I’m pretty sure it was a messy catch,” Pasciolla said. “He’s pretty good at making those messy catches. He doesn’t outwardly show a lot but between the whistles he does. He’s made some plays that you just shake your head at and we say: ‘Well, we didn’t plan on that, but we’ll take it.’”

The War Eagles had the lead when Cam Knox scored in the third quarter, and they had to grit it out down the stretch.

Reagan had a chance to regain the lead with 8:18 remaining, but its 30-yard field goal attempt doinked off the upright. Davie punted with 6:46 to play, but the defense forced a Reagan punt about three minutes later. An errant snap on the punt allowed Davie to take possession at the Reagan 26, but the War Eagles had a turnover on downs at the Reagan 8 at 3:51. Their defense came up with another stop and forced a punt from the Reagan 11 at 2:22. Davie had to punt again and Reagan had one last shot from its 23 with 73 seconds to go. The Raiders went deep on first down, and safety Max Cornatzer sealed the win by intercepting at midfield.

The win consisted of more spit than polish, more grit than glitter. But Davie will gladly take it.

“It was a dogfight, an absolute dogfight to get yards for both sides,” Pasciolla said. “It was physical trenches on both sides of the ball. Our defensive line (Jathan Redmond, Ean Click and DJ McCaskill) held up fantastically. They made them pay for every yard they got.”

Knox was Davie’s top rusher with 78 yards. Harrison went 7 of 17 for 91 yards. While those aren’t earth-shattering numbers, Pasciolla gave his quarterback two thumbs up.

“Colin had to deliver some strikes off his back foot because they were sending double-A gap pressures and going bullet blitzes with their two linebackers,” he said. “We could pick up five of them, but one was coming (free). But he did an excellent job staying in the pocket. He had to throw off his back foot some, but he delivered some beauties against some fierce pressure. He knew what his assignment was and he was a tough kid. He has done a lot of growing. He’s been awesome in his development and he’s had a great attitude the whole time.”