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Mount Airy’s Justin Collier (7) and Darrell Valentine (70) congratulate each other after Collier returned an interception 45-yards for a touchdown Friday.
The Bears put together an extremely solid overall performance and walked away with a 66-0 victory, the most lopsided final score in the 50-year-old rivalry.
Mount Airy coach Kelly Holder said he was pleased with his team’s performance from top to bottom.
“I said this all the time last year, it doesn’t matter who you play, you just want to play as good as you can play and get better,” Holder said. “I’ll tell you what, there ain’t a whole lot to fuss about tonight, offensively and defensively. It was just a really, really complete game for us and I really was happy.”
Mount Airy scored nearly every way imaginable, racking up more than 300 yards of total offense in the first half alone and more than 500 for the game.
Bears running back Andy “Boo” Temoney rushed nine times for 119 yards and three scores, Luke Wheeler finished with 192 yards and three scores and Justin Collier caught one pass for a score and returned an interception for a touchdown.
Conversely, Mount Airy (8-0, 4-0) stifled North Surry’s (1-7, 1-3) offensive attack, limiting junior running back Joston Phipps to just 34 yards on 10 carries and pestering junior quarterback Tanner Hiatt all night. The Greyhounds managed just over 50-yards of total offense for the game.
The Bears thrived off fantastic field position and a distinct advantage at the line of scrimmage.
Holder said he thought his team did a great job in the trenches against the Greyhounds.
“Our guys up front, they take it as a little bit of a challenge because we were so good up front last year,” Holder said. “They’ve worked really, really hard. We’re not very big and when you’re not very big you’ve got to use your brains and you’ve got to use your feet and you’ve just got to get after it and that’s what we do and it’s helped us out tremendously.”
North Surry coach Brian Hampton was obviously not pleased with the outcome and said the Bears showed who was the better, and stronger, team Friday.
“They are good and they are very well coached,” Hampton said. “Physically they are strong up front and we are not. That’s one thing we’ve got to work on the in offseason; we’ve got to get stronger. We’ve got some decent athletes on our team we are just weak up front and it’s just physical strength.”
The shutout marked the first of the season for Mount Airy and unfortunately for North Surry, came just one week after the Greyhounds put up 60 points on South Stokes, a game in which Phipps alone had more than 300 yards of total offense.
Holder credited the schematics of defensive coordinator Chris Johnson and the play of senior linebacker Stephen Hart for putting the clamps on Phipps and securing the North Surry goose-egg.
“Johnson did a little special defense tonight where sometimes all we had was 45 (Stephen Hart) in the middle and I’m going to tell you what, Hart was all over the place in the first half,” Holder said. “He plays laterally so well and we were very confident we could run that defense with him there and he did a good job for us.”
Holder also pointed to the play of the Bears’ defensive secondary, a unit which has taken some flack over the course of the season for not securing the pass.
“Our DB’s, who have been heckled a little bit in the past, they played extremely well for us tonight,” he said. “They didn’t give up the deep ball and I think that was a key to the game. When you are going against a kid who can throw the ball like Tanner Hiatt, you’ve got to be able to play some ‘stick-em’ defense.”
As for North Surry, Hampton said he and the Greyhounds need to regroup and find a way to improve in the final three games of the regular season.
“We’ve got to go back to work Monday and put this behind us,” Hampton said. “If we don’t it’s going to be a long three weeks. If we do, hopefully we can get enough wins to get a fourth week and see what happens. We’ve got to get better prepared and I’ve got to do a better job of preparing myself and a better job of preparing the guys and they’ve got to be willing to work and prepare themselves too.”
Mount Airy 66,
North Surry 0
First quarter
MA — Temoney 2 run (Hull kick) 8:08
MA — Collier 32 pass from Hinson (kick failed) 3:17
MA — Temoney 11 run (Wheeler run) :15
Second quarter
MA — Wheeler 75 pass from Hinson (Hull kick) 9:22
MA — Temoney 39 run (Hull kick) 6:34
MA — Wheeler 23 run (Hull kick) 2:56
MA — Collier 54 INT return (Hull kick) :33
Third quarter
MA — Wheeler 70 run (Hull kick) 11:35
Fourth quarter
MA — Schwartz 31 run (Hull kick) 11:10
MA — Hull 43 FG 2:34
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