How Reynolds football ‘left a lot of points out here’ but held off rival Asheville High

ASHEVILLE — Reynolds senior quarterback Hayden Craig had Friday’s game against Asheville High circled on his calendar.

Despite the high-profile face-off with a rival, Craig settled in on the second drive of the game, marching the Rockets down the field to take the lead. Reynolds never looked back, beating the Cougars 28-14 to improve to 4-3, including 3-0 in the Mountain Athletic Conference.

“(Craig)’s played in a ton of big games and he’s really good at his job,” Rockets coach Shane Laws said. “He throws the ball well, he’s very intelligent, he makes good decisions and he’s cool. I don’t know what else you could ask for at quarterback.”

Craig finished with 116 yards on 11-for-13 passing, including a 34-yard touchdown to senior Ty Johnson.

Reynolds was aided by its backfield production. Sophomore Tyvon Patterson rushed for 130 yards with two touchdowns, including a 70-yard score in the third quarter, and senior Malik Angrum rushed for a touchdown among his three carries for 55 yards.

“At any point, they’re going to break one,” Craig said about his running backs. “Then the defense has to load the box up and we can sling it around.”

Reynolds overcomes mistakes

Laws said his team’s performance was not quite to the level he expected going into the game, but added it never is against Asheville.

“The Asheville-Reynolds thing is different,” Laws said. “It’s a rivalry game. Nine times out of 10, the way you plan to coach this game and the way you expect it to go, it’s not going to go that way.”

The Rockets twice fumbled away the ball within the Cougars’ 10-yard line, including one that Craig coughed up right on the goal line, coming up just inches short of giving his team a 21-0 halftime lead.

“We left a lot of points out here tonight,” Laws said. “We get the turnover down (near the goal line), we don’t get anything out of it. We had another drive we stalled out on. But the defense came in and played well.”

Reynolds’ defense still struggled to stop Asheville’s screen-heavy offense in the second half.

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How Asheville High rallied in second half

Most of Asheville senior CJ Morgan’s seven catches and 47 yards in the second half came from at or near the line of scrimmage, except for a touchdown catch on a backwards pass play from junior running back Kyheem Plummer. Morgan finished with nine catches for 79 yards and two touchdowns.

After two second-half scores by Asheville (2-4, 1-1), Reynolds picked up two first downs late in the fourth to put the game away.

“This is my 27th Asheville-Reynolds game,” Laws said. “There have been very few that went exactly the way we wanted them to go. If you can find a way to win, shut up and be happy.”

Evan Gerike is the high school sports reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email him at egerike@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanGerike. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: How Reynolds held off Asheville High in rivalry football game