1 week Ago
By Mike London [email protected] SALISBURY — Salisbury boys basketball coach Albert Perkins often sat his stars down last winter with a 30-point lead.
Those were acts of mercy, but sometimes the lead still went from 30 to 40 because the Hornets had guys down the bench that could play. One of those athletes was Keial Matthews, who racked up 53 points in mop-up time. Basketball season is just around the corner, but Matthews hopes to prolong this football season for many weeks.
He’s having fun. He has found his calling. He has blossomed into an impactful player for Salisbury’s gridiron squad as a defensive end.
Matthews is long, but light for a defensive end at about 6-foot-1, 190 pounds. Matthews looks like he might be pancake material for a burly offensive tackle, but that mismatch works both ways. When teams want to throw against the Hornets, Matthews is too quick for that burly tackle to block.
In Salisbury’s 27-14 win against North Rowan, Matthews was credited by the SHS coaching staff with a monster game, maybe the best defensive game anyone’s had in the county all season — four sacks, six tackles for loss, seven QB pressures. “He has tremendous get-off,” Salisbury head coach Clayton Trivett said. “He beat ’em all night long.
” QB pressures, sometimes called hurries, aren’t always tracked by statisticians, but they may be the most underrated defensive stat. If you made the QB throw it before he wanted to throw it, you changed the play. You may have created an under-throw or an over-throw for an interception.
University of Georgia linebacker Jalon Walker, who starred for the Hornets a few years ago, specializes in pressures, a skill which could make him a first-round draft pick. Salisbury has had a long list of surprise guys in a 9-1, Central Carolina Conference championship season. Matthews is one of them.
He came out of nowhere, didn’t even play football last season. “I had played some when I was a sophomore, but I didn’t play last season,” Matthews said. “My friends really wanted me to play this season.
It’s senior year and I decided to give it a shot.” From the first workout Matthews attended, the Hornets knew they had something, they just didn’t know exactly what they had. “He was so athletic, there was no doubt he could help us,” Trivett said.
“But it took some time to figure out where to put him. We tried him at linebacker first. Then he moved to defensive end.
That’s where it has worked out well. He can get to the quarterback.” Brothers Matt and Nathan Hogrefe work with Salisbury’s defensive linemen.
“I’ll tell you what kind of athlete Matthews is,” Matt said. “There was a play where he was 3 yards in the backfield, on the ground, got up, ran down the play and made the tackle 20 yards down the field. Seriously, we saw him do it.
” “He’s got a really good motor,” Nathan added. “I’d say he’s a go-getter who wants to get better,” Matthews wasn’t an immediate starter, but he still remembers his first sack in the third week of the season against East Rowan. That’s where it started clicking for him.
“That first sack gave me momentum,” Matthews said. “I’ve been able to keep it going.” Matthews had a sack at Thomasville.
He had three tackles for loss in the big win against Lexington. The Hogrefes said Matthews is coachable and positive, but he got ticked off about something in the game at North Rowan. He lost his cool for a while, but he got it back.
“He got mad,” Trivett said. “We told him to calm down and take it out on the other team. That’s what he did.
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