Whitefield Academy Dominates In All Three Phases In Win Over Wesleyan
The Whitefield Academy Wolfpack football team continued to put a dominating product on the field on Friday night, defeating the Wesleyan Wolves 42-7. The Wolves set the tone on both sides of the ball from their opening offensive drive that, despite a penalty on the drive, ended with a two yard rushing touchdown by quarterback, Ayden Duncanson and the Wolfpack the early 7-0 lead.
On the ensuing Wesleyan possession, the Whitefield special teams and defense would make their presence felt almost immediately. As the Wolves forced the Wolfpack to punt, Whitefield’s Bo Thompson would make his way down field making the tackle to pin Wesleyan deep in their own territory. As the Wolves took over, Whitefield continued to push Wesleyan back as Hines Harmon burst into the backfield for a tackle for loss, then as the Wesleyan drive continued to start the second quarter, a host of Whitefield defenders would take Wesleyan quarterback, Ryan Ward down at the one yard line.
After the Wolves were forced to punt the ball back to Whitefield, the Pack would not take long to get into the end zone once again as Duncanson would be pushed out of the pocket and make a throw across his body to Conlon Walker, who made a leaping catch over two defenders and managed to stay on his feet and scoot into the end zone and Whitefield would take a 14-0 lead. Looking to get something going offensively, Wesleyan would make a change at quarterback, opting for Ben Brown, and the move seemed to be one that had the Wolfpack on their heels a bit.
The Wolves would manage to drive down field and get into field goal range, but the Whitefield special teams would come up with another big play, blocking the attempt. On the ensuing possession, Whitefield would capitalize as Duncanson broke for a 69 yard touchdown run, his third score of the night, and the Wolfpack would take a 21-0 lead. In the third quarter, Whitefield would add two more scores courtesy of a Merce Relaford rushing touchdown and an interception returned for a touchdown by Jonathon Cassady, as they took a 35-0 lead.
The Wolves would get into the end zone late in the third after a Brown to Jamie Tremble touchdown pass, but the Wolfpack respond almost immediately as Thompson would score on a rushing touchdown as Whitefield would go on to pick up the 42-7 win. “We did a great job blocking on the perimeter tonight,” Whitefield head coach, Coleman Joiner said after the win. That blocking was evident in two of the Wolfpack’s scores as they both came with rushes to the edge. “A lot of stuff we came into the game that we wanted to run, we had a lot of success early,” Joiner added.
Friday’s win marks three consecutive weeks in which the Wolfpack help their opponent to seven points or less as their defense ran a near perfect night, including the blocked field goal in the second quarter. “That was huge,” Joiner said as he talked about how his players made it known heading into the season that they wanted to be impactful on special teams. “Most kids don’t talk about special teams, but they talked about wanting to make an impact every night on special teams and that was a huge play,” Joiner continued.
With the win, Whitefield improves to 4-0 heading into their bye week and when they return to action, they’ll do so on the road against a very tough Rabun County. “Just continue to polish what we’re doing,” Joiner said in preparation for their next match up noting that the bye week allows them to let some “banged up” players get healthy.
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