HobbsDailyReport.com
GASTONIA – Hickory High erased a 19-point deficit — scoring twice in the final seven minutes on Friday night – to nip Hunter Huss 28-27 for Russell Stone’s first victory as the Red Tornadoes’ head football coach.
Hickory (1-2) answered a late TD by the Huskies (2-2) to win, scoring about two minutes after Huss went up 27-20 on a 66-yard TD run by Crawford Chandler and a two-point conversion pass.
HICKORY 29
HUNTER HUSS 28
Derrien Phillips hit Jaekwon Staton for the second time — this one from 15 yards — to get Hickory within 27-26. Lining up for a PAT, Phillips instead took the snap and ran for a two-point conversion by leaping for the end zone and getting in for a one-point lead.
STONE
The victory was Stone’s 263rd and was Hickory’s first at Hunter Huss after losses there in 1983 and in 2015.
Phillips threw for almost 270 yards and ran for nearly 90 in the victory. He completed six passes to Antonio Parks and seven to Staton.
Huss, coming off a one-point overtime loss to Clover, S.C., after beating Patton and Cox Mill to start the season, had an early 19-point lead.
Chandler caught a scoring pass from Zo Wallace in the second quarter and Anthony Davis’ 70-yard interception return boosted the Huskies’ lead to 13-0.
In the third quarter, Huss extended its lead to 19-0 on Jahaad Wilson’s 16-yard scoring run.
Hickory then scored twice in about 4 ½ minutes, on a 1-yard run by Quintavious Saddler and Phillips’ 28-yard throw to Parks, and the deficit was cut to 19-14.
The Red Tornadoes went up 20-19 with a fourth-quarter 12-yard scoring pass from Phillip to Staton, and the two scores in the last 5:47 decided it.
Hickory and Huss, whose first game came in 1968, have now split their 22 meetings.
Two of Hickory’s three games this season under Stone have been decided by a point, as the Red Tornadoes fell 27-26 in overtime to Statesville in his first game.
The Red Tornadoes will complete the non-conference part of their schedule on Friday night at 7:30 p.m., facing Bandys on the road.
Hickory’s Northwestern 3A-4A opener is Sept. 22 at McDowell.
The Red Tornadoes and Bandys will play for just the fifth time and the third time in Butler Stadium, where Bandys won 22-20 in 2006 and Hickory won 27-20 in the Red Tornadoes’ most recent game at Bandys in 2008.
Hickory leads the series 3-1, having won by six at HHS in 2005 and by seven in overtime in 2007 at Barger Stadium.