Wave drop region opener at Westside

By Eugene Jolley
Courier Sports

ejolley@thepccourier.com

ANDERSON — It was a familiar story Thursday night for the Easley football team against region rival Westside.

Playing a night early due to the threat of heavy rains from Hurricane Florence, the Green Wave hung in there early, but a late score to end the first half gave Westside needed momentum and the Rams pulled away for a 42-14 win in the region opener.

“We had a good start,” Easley coach John Windham said. “We’re losing the field position battle. We’ve got to get to where we’re not giving them the short field and us having the long field. I felt like that happened a lot tonight. We’ve got to do a better job at trying to win the field position battle.”

The Rams (1-3, 1-0) scored first when senior tailback Paul Johnson rumbled in from eight yards out.

On the next-to-last play of the first quarter, special teams came up big for the Green Wave as Jeremy Harried blocked a punt and Dawson Wilson recovered the ball and returned it for a touchdown. Malaki Aleman’s kick made it 7-7 with 11 seconds left in the quarter.

Westside only punted one more time in the game.

Easley had a chance to keep its momentum rolling moments later when Harried broke away for a 70-yard go-ahead touchdown run, but the play was nullified by an illegal block penalty, and the Wave soon lost control of the game.

The Rams took advantage of field position midway through the second quarter. Traye Carson’s punt return to the Easley 28 set up the score four plays later, as Johnson scored from a yard out with 4:32 left in the half.

Then the Rams drove it 58 yards to score again just before halftime. A big play was a 30-yard run by Johnson on first and 23. Carson took the direct snap around the left side from 19 yards out with 51 seconds left in the half to make it 21-7.

“That was a big swing,” Windham said. “Here again I think they had two short fields where they only had to go 30 yards to score. They got in that heavy package and were able to stay in it. I think a lot of that had to do with a short field. They didn’t have to drive it down. They’ve got

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