Mission Accomplished: Vance rumbles past Rolesville to win NC 4AA state championship
They’re history.
Playing as Vance High School for the final time, Vance High School beat Rolesville 35-14 — and the Cougars became a repeat state champion for the first time.
Vance will change its name to Julius Chambers this summer, dropping the name of a former Confederate military officer to that of civil rights leader.
In their quest to repeat, the Cougars players had created a social media hashtag, #TheLastVance, as inspiration.
And now, there are no more games to win. Vance did what it set out to do.
“I’m just happy, man, just happy,” Cougars second-year coach Glenwood Ferebee said. “At one point, we didn’t think we would have a season. So to be able to get this done and have to go through (COVID-19 precautions), this will be a special one that I will remember for a long time.”
Looking at the final stats, the 2021 state final might appear to be lopsided. Vance ran for 331 yards and threw for 200, and the Cougars defense limited previously unbeaten Rolesville to minus-16 yards rushing and just 83 passing.
But early on, Vance kept getting its own way, with penalties and poor execution. For the game, the Cougars had 24 penalties for 187 yards. That kept the game close for more than two quarters.
“It’s a little bit of us,” Ferebee said, “but a little bit of something else too. It’s like what do you do?...Some of the penalties I didn’t agree with it, and I made it known to the referees and they came out in the second half and kind of fixed some of them.
“It got to a point where it felt like every time we got a big play, here comes the flags. I’m seeing the same penalties thrown on us on the other side, and flags are not coming. But we’ve dealt with it all year long, and we’ll continue to get better at coaching, and hopefully we don’t continue to get penalized like that. But we came out with a win, so it speaks to our kids’ fortitude, to play through that and still got it done.”
Heavily penalized early, the Cougars found themselves down 14-13 in the second quarter.
A muffed punt turnover and a short punt gave Rolesville two possessions inside the Vance 30. The Rams turned each into points.
Promising sophomore receiver Noah Rogers caught a pair of touchdown passes from junior quarterback Byrum Brown to give Rolesville the lead with 6 minutes, 33 seconds to play in the second quarter.
But after that, Vance found its finishing kick and put away a stubborn Rolesville team, whose star, Brown, was hobbled by a hip injury he suffered in the semifinals and appeared to re-aggravate Saturday.
After being down 1, Vance scored on its next possession, an 80-yard drive finished off by an 8-yard run from sophomore running back Daylan Smothers. A two-point conversion from Asauni Allen was called back -- another penalty -- but kicker Melvin Benitez made a 30-yard extra point kick to give Vance a 20-14 halftime lead.
Then, the Cougars went to locker room and just talked about what was happening.
“Coach was great at keeping us level-headed,” senior QB Austin Grier, the championship MVP, said. “Obviously, when things go wrong, and you just made a big play, your first reaction is to be in shock, but coach did a good job at halftime of calming us down and letting us realize that we were really beating ourselves. And once we locked in, we were able to get a win.”
In the second half, Vance left little doubt.
In the first half, Rolesville ran 32 plays for 63 yards. In the second half, the Rams ran 23 plays for just four yards.
And on offense, Vance scored twice in four possessions, grabbed a 21-point lead, and put the game away.
“I thought we played hard,” Rolesville coach Martin Samek said. “Vance is a very good football program and a very good football team; defending state champs and they deserved to win the football game.”
Three who mattered
Vance running backs Daylan Smothers, Joseph Morris: Smothers, a sophomore, ran 12 times for 97 yards and a score. Morris ran 11 times for 86 yards.
Vance QB Austin Grier: championship MVP completed 14-of-19 passes for 200 yards and three touchdowns. He ran 11 times for 86 yards.
Jacorrey Bible, Rolesville: finished with a game high 17 tackles, including four tackles for loss and a sack. He was named Rolesville’s defensive MVP.
Notes
▪ Smothers was offensive MVP for Vance. Linebacker Jalen Swindell (six tackles, 2.5 for loss, one sack) was defensive MVP.
▪ Rolesville sophomore Noah Rogers caught five passes for 69 yards and two touchdowns. He also had two kickoff returns for 77 yards and was named his team’s most outstanding offensive player.
▪ Vance sacked the Rolesville QB four times. Swindell got one, Jyliek Harrington got one and James Pearce had two sacks. Pearce and Harrington had five tackles each.
They Said It
“We’re a humble team, but we’re a confident team. We feel like every time (we) go out and do what (we’re) supposed to do, we can win. Our biggest obstacle was us and it’s going to always be us As long as we can take care of business, with talent we have and the coaching staff we have, I think we’ll be fine for next 2-3 years.” -- Ferebee
Vance 7 13 15 0 — 35
Rolesville 7 7 0 0 — 14
V: Armon Wright 59 pass from Austin Grier (Melvin Benitez kick)
R: Noah Rogers 13 pass from Byrum Brown (Devin Versteegen kick)
V: KC Concepcion 14 pass from Austin Grier (kick failed)
R: Noah Rogers 6 pass from Brown (Versteegen kick)
V: Daylan Smothers 8 run (Benitez kick)
V: Asauni Allen 26 pass from Grier (Benitez kick)
V: Allen 43 run (Smothers run)
This story was originally published May 8, 2021 at 8:02 PM.
