Andrew McKay are 2-0 in the Mountain Athletic Conference after Friday’s 34-16 win at Asheville High.
ASHEVILLE – Skeptics were everywhere when Reynolds was voted the preseason favorite in Mountain Athletic Conference football.
Anyone care for a recount this election year?
The Rockets are sitting pretty after back-to-back victories against Erwin and now Asheville High – Nathan St. Onge rushed for 98 yards and passed for 93 more in Friday’s 34-16 road win over the Cougars.
Rmani Lynch (21 yards) and Kaedin Robinson (4 yards) were on the receiving end of touchdown passes, while Andrew Wall showed off his kicking leg with field goals from 32 and 47 yards. The longer of the two tries just cleared the uprights as time expired in the second quarter.
Reynolds (5-2, 2-0) has now won a dozen MAC games in a row dating back to 2014.
“It wasn’t pretty at times. But any time you beat Asheville, it’s a good win over a good team,” Rockets coach Shane Laws said.
“We missed some opportunities, especially in the first half. Even when we got a lead, I was waiting for something crazy to happen. That’s the way it always is with Asheville.”
Nothing out of the ordinary occurred in front of a big crowd gathered inside Memorial Stadium after the Rockets drove the ball 58 yards on their first possession.
Lynch, who had four catches for 76 yards, capped that drive with his only touchdown grab at the 8:17 mark of the first quarter. Shortly after that, leading tackler Frank Torres recovered a fumble in the end zone to give Reynolds all the cushion it would need.
Robinson also had a 1-yard touchdown run in the second half. Keyal Talbert carried the ball 11 times for 68 yards. Conor Sullivan and Kejuan Watkins had interceptions for the Rockets defense.
Asheville (2-4, 0-1) is back home next Friday against Enka. Reynolds will enjoy a bye week before making the short trip to play Oct. 13 on the Jets’ field.
“We need the week off,” Laws said.
“We’re beat-up right now, and most of all we’re just tired. You go through what we did last week (a 49-48 overtime win over Erwin at home) and your reward is Asheville. It’s been tough. We lost two games early on (to West Forsyth on Aug. 19 and Shelby on Aug. 26) that prepared us for this. We played those two and went through that to get ready for Asheville and Erwin.”
Cougars quarterback Devon Davidson passed for 137 yards, while Ahmad Shivers added 83 rushing yards and two short touchdown runs (2 and 5 yards). His second trip to the end zone were the final points of the game and happened with 2:01 to play.
“You have to give Reynolds a lot of credit,” Asheville coach David Burdette said.
“Everybody talked all week about their offense and I was the most impressed with their defense. Our kids play hard and they did again tonight. We just made too many mistakes.”
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