By Mike London
Salisbury Post
GRANITE QUARRY — East Rowan head coach Brian Flynn was at North Davidson a long time, almost two decades, the last seven as head coach of the Black Knights.
Flynn’s teams won 53 games during those seven seasons, lost only 19 and contended for state titles. His right-hand man was defensive coordinator Alex Tesh. One of the eager ball boys for the Black Knights was Alex’s son, Ashur Tesh.
When Flynn was hired by East Rowan in January 2024 to try to turn a struggling program around, Alex Tesh made the move to teach and coach alongside his friend in Granite Quarry. Tesh and Flynn are a team within a team. Now Tesh is East’s DC.
“I wasn’t going to East Rowan unless Alex was coming too,” Flynn said.
The bonus is that former Black Knights ball boy Ashur Tesh has grown up. He’s 6 feet and about 185 pounds now. He’s gained about 15 pounds in the last year. He was a good sophomore linebacker for the varsity and led the Mustangs in tackles. Now he’s a really good junior linebacker who has a chance to be a great one. He has 25 tackles in East’s first two games.
“Moving from North Davidson to East Rowan was an adjustment for me,” Ashur Tesh said. “It was kind of a rough first year. But it’s gotten a lot better.”
Flynn explained that Tesh plays the “Demon” position for the Mustangs, who have started 2-0 for the first time since 2018. He’s an outside backer who has some pass coverage responsibilities, but he is primarily a run-stopper. Tesh is the guy East wants to make a lot of tackles because when Tesh hits people, they stop moving forward.
Tesh sets the standard for the Mustangs in the weight room. Year-round. At last report, he was bench-pressing 315 pounds.
“Pound for pound, Ashur is our strongest guy,” Flynn said. “The weight room is where he separates himself from most players. His work ethic is remarkable. It’s relentless.”
There are really strong guys who don’t impact football games because they can’t read plays fast enough or they can’t move quickly enough. Tesh is a solid runner (4.8 in the 40 and getting quicker) who can get to the ball and he reads the field like an assistant coach.
“I think one of my strengths is I’m a leader,” Tesh said. “Another thing is I know where everyone is supposed to be on the field, so if a teammate doesn’t know where to go, I can help him.”
A lot of things came together for Tesh in Friday’s exciting 19-13 overtime win at Pine Lake Prep. The 10 tackles were business as usual. They were just the frosting on the cake. A lot of Mustangs had a lot of tackles against a run-heavy offense. Collin Hensley had 11. Carter Facemyer had 10.
Tcsh’s 65-yard interception return for a touchdown was one of the humongous plays in the game because East’s offense was struggling to put points on the board.
“Jayden Peters deserves most of the credit for that play,” Tesh said. “I could see their quarterback was looking for a guy who was behind me, but when Jayden hit him, his throw was short. It went right to me.”
Tesh, who runs the ball some for East’s offense, did the work after that.
“I was determined to score on that play,” Tesh said. “I was going to run guys over if I had to.”
Tesh’s pick-six should’ve given the Mustangs a 13-10 win in regulation, but things got dicey after East muffed a punt on its 12-yard line late in the game. East’s defense buckled down and got a stop, but on fourth down, Pine Lake Prep kicked it second field goal of the night to send the game to overtime.
East had the ball first in the overtime, with four downs to score from the Pine Lake Prep 10.
It didn’t take four. Tesh quickly barreled into the end zone out of East’s “Jumbo” package for a 19-13 lead.
“We had run that same play once earlier in the game in a fourth-and short situation, and Ashur had converted for the first down,” Flynn said. “In the winning drive we had with Jumbo in the Wheatmore game (Week 1), we mostly handed off to Nolan Strozier. That’s what Pine Lake Prep was looking for, but we faked it to Strozier and gave it to Ashur, and our offensive line got the blocks we needed.”
East’s PAT after the overtime touchdown was blocked, so Pine Lake Prep just needed a touchdown and a PAT kick to win the game, but East’s defense came up big once again and got the stop that sealed victory.
“There’s a lot of happy people on our team and in the school right now,” Tesh said. “It does feel good to be 2-0.”
After an 0-10 debut at East in 2024, Flynn is pleased with the progress the Mustangs have made. He saw improvement coming because of the determined work the team put in over the off-season, but you still never know if improvement is going to translate immediately into wins.
In East’s case, it has.
“I can’t say enough about how well our defense has played in the first two games,” Flynn said. “We’ve put our defense in bad spots, given our opponents short fields, but they’ve still gotten stops and forced field goal attempts. But we all know we’ve got to get better offensively. The level of competition we’re playing is going to be picking up. Our guys understand that.”
