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North Gaston players celebrate their win over Asheville Friday night at the Asheville High School Memorial Stadium.
By John Clark/The Gazette
North Gaston beats Asheville, sets sights on state title game
ASHEVILLE — It was the biggest play in the careers of North Gaston High football standouts A.J. Blue and Princeton Brooks, yet neither could look.
“That’s our superstition,” Blue said afterward. “When big plays come up, we just look each other right in the eye until it’s over. The crowd tells us what happened.”
In this case, the more than 2,000 North Gaston supporters that descended on Asheville’s Memorial Stadium told them the Wildcats’ defense had held — and a 35-34 victory over Asheville was going to send them to next week’s N.C. Class 3A championship game in Chapel Hill.
“It’s unbelieveable,” Brooks said. “Who would have ever thought little ol’ North Gaston would make it to the ’ship?”
But North Gaston is going, taking a 12-2 record with them after another thrilling finish for a Gaston County team at Asheville. In 2002, Ashbrook won an overtime thriller en route to its Class 3AA championship. In 2003, South Point beat the Cougars on a snow-covered field on its way to the Class 3A title.
“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” North Gaston lineman Chase Gamble said. “All I know is that we know we’ve got one more week to play.”
And one more game to win if they want to realize their season-long goal.
In truth, getting there was quite harrowing as Blue and Brooks probably weren’t the only ones who couldn’t watch to see if the Cougars (12-3) were going to pull off an improbable comeback.
Trailing 35-21 with four minutes to play, Asheville scored two touchdowns in the next three minutes to cut the North Gaston lead to 35-34.
But the Cougars passed up the potentially game-tying extra point and rolled the dice in hopes of winning the game on a 2-point conversion.
“We had the momentum with a two-touchdown comeback,” Asheville coach Danny Wilkins said. “When we called a timeout to talk about it, our seniors said they wanted to go for it and I have a lot of confidence in them.”
Try they did, but a North Gaston gang-tackling defense stopped Greg Ray, who had previously scored two touchdowns, just inches from the goal line.
Exactly who stopped Ray remained up for debate afterwards.
“I think it was everybody,” Gamble said.
After the defensive stand, an onsides kick — Asheville’s fourth of the game — rolled out of bounds — and Blue kneeled out two snaps to seal the victory.
It’ll send North Gaston to its fifth sports state championship game or series in its 36-year school history. The Wildcats lost in the 1987 Class 3A basketball title game, won the 1987 3A baseball series, then lost 3A title series’ in 1990 and 1998.
North Gaston will play Western Alamance (15-0), which defeated Rocky Mount 50-36 Friday night to win the Eastern 3A title.
Blue and Brooks led the Wildcats offense and accounted for all five touchdowns. Blue scored on runs of 8, 1 and 1 yards and completed a 29-yard scoring pass to Darius Edwards. Brooks scored on a 73-yard kickoff return.
Blue had 119 yards rushing and 118 yards passing. Brooks had 61 yards rushing, leaving him 48 yards shy of Howard “Junior” Hall’s Gaston County record of 4,820 career yards rushing.
NG 14 7 7 7 - 35
A 7 0 14 13 - 34
First quarter
NG — A.J. Blue 8 run (Drew Stewart kick), 8:33.
A — Marcus Thorpe 57 interception return (Reed Turchi kick), 7:05.
NG — Blue 1 run (Stewart kick), 2:33.
Second quarter
NG — Darius Edwards 29 pass from Blue (Stewart kick), 12:00.
Third quarter
A — Darius Harrell 59 pass from Rahkeem Morgan (Turchi kick), 9:21.
NG — Princeton Brooks 73 kickoff return (Stewart kick), 9:10.
A — Greg Ray 3 run (Turchi kick), 3:29.
Fourth quarter
NG — Blue 1 run (Stewart kick), 10:18.
A — G. Ray 1 run (Turchi kick), 3:41.
A — G. Ray 1 run (Run failed), 1:03.
NG A
First downs 13 16
Rushes-yards 37-180 34-153
Passing yards 118 221
Comp-Att-Int 7-13-3 13-26-1
Fumbles-lost 3-2 4-2
Penalties-yards 8-75 6-39
Individual statistics
RUSHING— NG: Brooks 15-61, Blue 22-119. A: Morgan 12-61, G. Ray 16-66, Antonio Carson 1-2, Spenser Clement 5-24.
PASSING— NG: Blue 7-13-3 118. A: Morgan 13-26-1 221.
RECEIVING— NG: Austin Ray 2-8, Edwards 2-38, Dominique Carter 1-57, Brooks 2-15. A: Harrell 6-104, Carson 0-5, Darion Ray 2-4, G. Ray 2-12, Clement 2-11, Will McMillan 1-39.
