By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY 33
BANDYS 10
CATAWBA — Bandys High head football coach Trent Lowman — himself a former quarterback of note — probably best summed up what happened to his Trojans on Friday night.
Visiting Hickory, with Derrien Phillips enjoying a feast of a night at Butler Stadium, quickly ate up any hope Bandys had of winning a non-conference football game.
Phillips had 10 rushes for 169 yards and four TDs, completed 13 of 22 passes for 239 yards and posted 408 of the Red Tornadoes’ 434 yards on offense in a 33-10 it-wasn’t-even-that-close victory over the Trojans (2-2).
“He was what we worried about all week,” Lowman said postgame. “He’s probably the best quarterback we have seen or will see.
“He’s a quarterback.
“You see everybody taking athletes and making them quarterbacks, but you could put him in any offense and I think he’d do well. It’s hard to play quarterback if you aren’t one.”
Derrien Phillips, last week’s WNNC Oldies 101.3 FM Coca-Cola Golden Helmet Award winner, had another big game on Friday at Bandys./HICKORY PUBLIC SCHOOLS PHOTO
Playing cool, calm and collected, Phillips was clearly the best player on the field Friday night. And his lights (and jet speed) came on from the first time he touched the football.
Hickory got the opening kickoff to its 39, and Phillips threw 14 yards to Jaekwon Staton. On the next play, from the Bandys 47, Phillips ran a tad left and then burst straight forward to outrun everybody for a TD.
Up 7-0 just 32 seconds into the game, Phillips wasted little time igniting again once Bandys was forced to punt after its first possession.
Taking over at their 32, the Red Tornadoes (2-2) ate that yardage up in eight plays that included a Phillips to Antonio Parks pass of 33 yards. Two plays after that, Phillips ran up the middle and broke an 18-yard run for a TD and 13-0 lead.
Over the course of the night, Phillips did a little of everything – the only other Red Tornadoes to run the ball were Quintavious Saddler (seven touches for 27 yards)and Jalen Byrd (three carries, minus-1 yard) – and put on a show so to speak.
In the second half, Phillips had a 40-yard throw to Parks (three catches, 100 yards) that set up his 23-yard TD run with three minutes, two seconds left in the third quarter for a 26-3 lead.
“A lot of times you don’t see a quarterback throw to the middle of the field,” said Lowman, who threw for 3,329 yards and 42 TDs as the Trojans’ starting quarterback in 1999 and 2000 while playing for his dad, Randy. “He does that well at mid-range, and when you have a kid that makes throws, that’s the ones that are really dangerous.”
Bandys — falling to 1-4 all-time against HHS — countered with 285 yards of offense that included 232 rushing on 50 attempts, led by bullish Ethan Howard’s hard-earned 146 yards on 22 carries.
But when the Trojans found themselves needing a big play, anything that might show the Red Tornadoes they were capable of changing the momentum, they couldn’t deliver it.
Lowman said Bandys had receivers behind the HHS secondary at least twice and dropped the throws.
The longest gain of the night for the Trojans was 26 yards by Travis Russell on a third down play in their second possession.
“If we could make those plays not only do we score but it helps soften up the defense,” Lowman said of mustering just 53 passing yards. “Give Hickory credit… they played hard.”
Especially Phillips, who did get intercepted twice. But he otherwise had just the right touch and angle on nearly all his completions – some of them not-so-easy catches – and who, as Lowman said, might be the most complete quarterback currently playing in the Great Hickory region.
“I (already) knew he was really good,” said Lowman, who worked some camps that Phillips had attended.
Notes: Hickory’s 23-point margin is the biggest in the five-game series. The other win margins were HHS by six and twice by seven and Bandys’ only win came 22-20 at Butler in 2006…this was the first non-league Red Tornadoes-Trojans matchup; the other four games were when the schools were in the Catawba Valley Athletic 2A-3A… Bandys finds out on Friday if its scheduled starting quarterback, Lake Hojnacki, can get back into the lineup. Lowman said Hojnacki, who broke his collarbone in a scrimmage about six weeks ago, could play against Maiden next Friday if cleared by doctors this week. With that medical decision not coming until Friday, Lowman said it adds an extra layer of needed preparation for the Trojans – as they have to prepare offensive game plans with Hojnacki in the lineup and another if he is not.