It didn’t take long to see who was in control Friday night at Wallace Shelton Stadium.

Mount Airy made quick work of the visiting Rosewood Eagles, rolling to a 52-0 win in the first round of the state playoffs.

Rosewood, which is near Goldsboro, had no more than 30 fans make the four-hour-plus ride to the Granite City.

Senior tailback Andy Temoney carried the load offensively for the Bears, finishing with 190 yards rushing on 23 carries for three touchdowns, with the majority of those yards and all three scores coming in the first half.

The Mount Airy defense smothered Rosewood’s Wing-T rushing attack, limiting the Eagles to just 42 yards on 25 carries and less than 100 yards overall.

Mount Airy coach Kelly Holder said the defense, led by 2009 Northwest 1A/2A defensive player of the year Luke Wheeler, was the key to the overall success of the Bears Friday.

“They really couldn’t do much of anything all night long and the defensive line was doing a good job of getting through and the linebackers were scraping well,” Holder said. “We pretty much just had our way with them on defense.”

Mount Airy dominated the field position game as well, never once allowing Rosewood to start past its own 20-yard line, while almost always starting its own drives just outside the Eagles 50.

“When we get the ball from the 50-yard line in and they get the ball on the 20-yard line, it helps out a bunch,” Holder said. “And all year long that’s been the situation, because offensively we’ve been successful because of our defense giving us the ball in certain situations with field position and Tyler Hull has a lot to do with that, too.”

The Bears started things off in style, with a 41-yard screen pass from quarterback Ben Hinson to Wheeler, who ran straight down the middle of the field into the end zone.

But after the quick score, the Mount Airy offense looked confused and had a hard time finding its rhythm.

Just before the end of the first quarter Hinson hooked up with senior Justin Collier, this time on a 42-yard strike, to put the Bears up 14-0.

While the scoreboard showed Mount Airy’s dominance overall, Holder said his team did have trouble finding its footing in the early going.

“There’s no doubt we were a little bit sluggish early,” Holder said. “Some of that is my fault and some of it is we just weren’t very focused early and didn’t really warm up well and it carried over a little bit. You’re not going to come out to beat the world every week. That’s one thing that every good team has to be good at, they have to be ready to play every night. But we came on there in the last of the first and early in the second.”

The second quarter belonged to Temoney, who scored all three of his touchdowns within a seven-minute span of game time.

The speedy back scored on runs of 16, 10 and one yard to all but put the win in the books for the Bears.

Tyler Hull added the first half exclamation point, booting a 46-yard field goal to send both teams to the locker room with the Bears up 38-0.

For Temoney, Friday’s performance was a removal from a tough outing against East Surry, which saw the all-conference senior held to his lowest rushing output of the season. Holder said he was happy to see his go-to back find himself in familiar territory — the end zone.

“Last week they had him bottled up pretty well and it was good to see him break out,” Holder said. “I like the fact that he was going north and south early and trying to run over people. He runs hard for his size. Pound for pound, he probably runs as hard as anybody we’ve had in a long time.”

Wheeler added on a one-yard plunge in the third quarter and senior Chase Smith broke a blazing 76-yard touchdown run to start the fourth, burying Rosewood in the process.

Mount Airy’s second team played from the majority of the second half and preserved the shutout win, its third of the season.

Hinson finished with 119 yards passing and two touchdowns, while Wheeler added 95 yards on nine carries and one score.

The Bears will now take on West Columbus next week in the second round after it defeated North Stokes Friday.

Contact Thomas Smith at tsmith@mtairynews.com or 719-1920.