Mitchell Pounds Cherryville, Plays West Wilkes in Round Two

Justin Hughes ran for 273 yards and five touchdowns in last week's
opening round win over Cherryville (Ben Goff/The Gaston Gazette photo)

Not a lot of people outside of Mitchell County expected the Mountaineers to handle the fast-paced attack of the Southern Piedmont Conference champion Cherryville Ironmen in the first round of the NCHSAA 1AA state football playoffs. As has been the case for much of the 2010 season, however, the Mountaineers (6-6) defied the pundits, hitting the road to Gaston County last Friday, Nov. 12, to defeat the Ironmen in convincing fashion by a 49-27 final score.

It was a dominating performance in all phases of the game for the team in purple, cranking up the running game out of its vaunted spread offense to the tune of 499 yards on 43 attempts. Quarterback Justin Hughes himself accounted for 273 of the yards on just 15 carries, and scored a whopping five touchdowns.

Cherryville drew first blood in the game on a five-play drive when running back Markeith Redd raced 36 yards for the game’s first touchdown just two minutes into the matchup.

Following Cherryville’s score, however, the Mountaineer coaching staff adjusted to stop the Ironmen option offense. Mitchell shut down the dive play to Cherryville fullback Shane Harwell, and prevented the big plays to the boundary from quarterback Thomas Bess and running backs Redd and Alex Burns.

With the Ironmen offense bottled up, the Mitchell offense took over and rolled up 36 unanswered points over the next two and half quarters to commence with the rout.

The Mountaineer defense forced a pair of Cherryville turnovers and capitalized on both mistakes with touchdowns, using a 44-yard and a 41-yard scoring drive to take advantage of the short-field opportunities.

Mitchell running back Shawn Jackson scored the first Mountaineer touchdown on a two-yard run, then converted the two-point conversion run to give Mitchell an 8-7 lead with 3:43 left in the first quarter.

Cherryville fumbled on its next offensive series and Hughes cashed in with the first of his scores for the game, a 47-yard scurry which, along with an Isaac Edwards extra point kick, gave Mitchell a 15-7 lead barely more than two minutes after its first score.

Mitchell’s defense forced an interception from Bess on Cherryville’s next series early in the second period and scored for a third straight series as Hughes galloped to purple paydirt from seven yards out.

The final two Cherryville possessions of the half resulted in punts as the Mitchell defense had its way with the speedy Ironmen offense. The Mountaineers in the meantime added a fourth score on a two-yard Hughes plunge to carry a commanding 29-7 lead to halftime.

The second half story was more of the same for the Mitchell offense. With the opening drive of the second half, the Mountaineers drove 66 yards over 11 plays, capping the drive with a Michael Styles eight-yard run and Edwards PAT to take an impressive 36-7 advantage.

Cherryville’s Bess scored on a 35-yard run on the Ironmen’s ensuing series to finally break its scoring drought, but the Mitchell offense answered in the final seconds of the third period when Hughes raced to the end zone from 40 yards out for his fourth score of the night and a 43-14 lead.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Hughes put the icing on the cake when he broke through the Cherryville defense and rambled 86 yards for a touchdown to put an exclamation point on an historic night for the signal-caller.

With the win, the Mountaineers will take on the West Wilkes Blackhawks in the second round of the state playoffs this Friday, Nov. 19. West needed a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns to defeat conference rival East Wilkes 21-14 last week.