ALBEMARLE — Facing a winless Anson team, Albemarle’s hope of picking up its first win of the season was crushed as the Bearcats cruised to a 33-0 shutout road win on Friday.
The Bulldogs (0-4, 0-0 Yadkin Valley) struggled to get momentum going on both sides of the ball all night despite the favorable matchup — the Bearcats (1-3, 0-0 Rocky River) had been outscored by a 121-35 total margin in their first three games.
Despite holding Anson scoreless in the fourth quarter, the damage had already been done by that point.
“I told our team that we have to keep working and fighting so we can get this thing turned around,” Albemarle coach Richard Davis said. “We were missing some guys for various reasons but that’s not an excuse — we still have to come out here and execute. We did some good things defensively, but we’re just not where we need to be offensively.”
The Bearcats’ offensive domination over the Bulldogs started early with two touchdowns in the first four minutes of the game. The first score was a rushing touchdown by Toney , followed by a completion from quarterback Luke Hyatt to wideout Dimitri Clark.
Hyatt would go on to throw two more passing touchdowns during the contest.
Anson held a 20-0 lead going into halftime and quickly added another passing touchdown three minutes into the third quarter; the Bearcats then notched their fifth score of the night seven minutes later.
While Albemarle’s offense showed some signs of life thanks to a few extended drives led by quarterback Ander Artis, the Bulldogs stalled out in the red zone on multiple occasions.
“We kept fighting and got some turnovers in the second half and made some big plays offensively. We just couldn’t put it together to get in the end zone,” Davis said.
Albemarle will begin conference play Friday night when the Bulldogs travel to Jay M. Robinson (4-1, 0-0 Yadkin Valley), who is coming off a 27-6 loss to Cutherberson (2-3, 0-0 Southern Carolina).
Davis said he is hopeful that with some difficult matchups already behind them, the transition to the conference slate of games will spark a fresh mindset for his young team which only has six upperclassmen on the roster.
“We’re in a tough conference so it won’t be easy sledding, but this will give us a clean slate,” the fifth-year coach said. “The nonconference games don’t matter if you take care of the conference games. We’re taking our lumps right now, but we’re going to keep working.”