Westside notches win No. 1

Homecoming is always a night of celebration. For Westside, it wasn’t nearly as special as earning that first victory.

Ram senior quarterback Brandon McCann threw for 349 yards and five touchdowns as Westside (1-8, 1-2 region) knocked off Laurens (1-8, 1-2), 39-29, Friday at Westside Stadium to end an 9-game losing streak dating back to last season’s finale.

“It’s just good to win,” Ram coach Ted Luckadoo said. “Our kids have played so hard so much, they deserved to win. We should of won before now but we didn’t and we still made some crazy mistakes but we played good enough to win.

“I’m proud of our coaches and proud of our players. They just never gave up. They practiced hard last week and they practiced hard every week. It was just rewarding to see them smile.”

McCann was stellar all night, going 20-of-31 passing with an interception on a third-and-long that might as well have been a punt.

“We always felt like we were much better than to not win a game,” McCann said. “We’ve got the playmakers and skills, but I’m really happy we won and pulled it out. We became a team.”

Nine of McCann’s completions went to senior receiver Matt Levine, who racked up 173 yards and hauled in three touchdowns.

“He’s a playmaker,” McCann said about Levine. “I know I can go to him whenever I need something, and he balled out tonight.”

McCann got it going early, completing 10 of his first 11 pass attempts and throwing touchdowns of 42 yards and 16 yards on the Rams’ first two possessions. He added three more scoring passes of 15, 63 and 45 yards.

“We finished tonight and finally played a good third quarter,” McCann said. “(Laurens) had a few things they couldn’t stop when we ran it so we just kept on rolling.”

The Rams got plenty of help from the Raiders, who shot themselves in the foot with 15 penalties for 118 yards lost. But, Laurens did rack up 284 rushing yards and returned a kick 94 yards for a touchdown.

Luckadoo said the game plan wasn’t necessarily to come out and torch the Raider secondary, but it worked out that way.

“We took advantage of what they gave us,” he said. “If they stacked seven in the box we were going to throw it.”

Westside scored on the opening drive with a 42-yard touchdown pass from McCann to Smith down the left side less than two minutes into the game to go up 6-0.

After Westside’s Nathan Stukes intercepted Laurens quarterback Ketorius Patterson on his first pass attempt and returned it to the Raider 20, McCann found Levine for a 16-yard touchdown to make it 13-0.

Laurens answered 16 seconds later with an 80-yard touchdown run by Latarus Guest to cut the lead to six, and the Raiders got down to the Westside 1 on their next drive but fumbled and the Rams recovered.

Westside took advantage of the turnover when McCann found Levine for a 53-yard pass down to the Laurens 28 before hitting him again for a 15-yard score to go up 20-7 with 8:17 to play in the second quarter.

On Laurens’ next possession, a bad snap on a Raider punt went out the back of the end zone to give the Rams a 22-7 lead.

Caleb McCarley added a 25-yard field goal with 4:45 left in the first half.

After forcing Laurens to punt on its first drive of the third quarter, the Rams scored when McCann tossed a short pass to Anthony McCoppin, who took it the rest of the way for a 63-yard touchdown with 6:32 left in the quarter.

After Laurens answered with a 9-yard touchdown run by Michael Morton, McCann hooked up with Levine for the third time on a 45-yard scoring play with 53 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Raiders scored the last two touchdowns on the big kick return by Guest and a 12-yard rush by B.J. Moses.

However, it was too late to catch Luckadoo’s squad, which hopes this victory carries over into next week’s game against Easley.

“We’ve always got something to work on,” Luckadoo said. “We’ve just got to take the fact that we won the football game. We worked hard and we were rewarded.”

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