Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Monroe QB Quayshawn Chambers gets offer from Duke



Monroe High School officials report today that junior quarterback Quayshawn Chambers has been offered a scholarship by Duke.

Chambers, 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, was named the Charlotte Touchdown Club's 2011 Comeback Player-of-the-Year. In the first game of the 2010 season, Chambers fractured his ankle against Porter Ridge High School. The broken tibia bone required him to undergo emergency surgery to insert a plate and four screws into the ankle.

This season, Chambers started at QB, leading Monroe to a 10-4 record. He threw for more than 1,700 yards passing and had more than 1,200 yards rushing.

Here's a story I wrote about him last November:

MONROE Last year, Monroe High quarterback Quay Chambers was a sophomore starting at tight end. He was supposed to be a major contributor. But in the first quarter of the first game, Chambers tried to make a cut. His leg twisted, and he severely injured his ankle.
          He needed surgery and was out for several months.
This season, Chambers, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound junior, is making the most of his first full season. He has started all 13 games at quarterback. He has rushed for 1,123 yards and 16 touchowns. He has thrown for 1,602 yards and 20 scores.

"He's had an awesome year," Monroe coach Johnny Sowell said. "He's big and he runs like a sprinter. You talk about a big body like that and we spread the field and go right at you. It's hard to contain him."

Chambers will lead Monroe (10-3) into tonight's N.C. 1AA semifinal against visiting West Montgomery (10-2). This will be the third-straight year the teams have met in the playoffs. Monroe won 38-21 last year. In 2009, West Montgomery beat Monroe 17-14 after a blown call by a referee cost Monroe a third-quarter touchdown. The referee, an 18-year veteran, saw the call on video and wrote an email to Monroe's athletic officials to apologize.

That 2009 team was unbeaten and rolling. It may have been the school's best chance at a first state championship.

"There are a lot of similarities between this team and the '09 team," Sowell said. "We're bigger up front than that team, though."

The squad Sowell likes to compare his current team to is the 1989 Monroe team that started the season 1-3 and went on to the 2A state championship game, where Monroe lost 16-0 to Clayton.

Sowell was an assistant on that team. And this year's Monroe team, like the '89 team, started 1-3.

This year, the Redhawks lost 55-26 to Porter Ridge, a 4A quarterfinalist, 45-41 to Concord, a 3A quarterfinalist, and 38-12 to Marvin Ridge, which finished 10-2 and lost to Charlotte Catholic in the second round of the 3A playoffs.

Monroe only has 24 players on varsity this year, including Chambers.

"After the fourth game in '89 we turned it around," Sowell said. "We did the same thing this year. We want to play the best out there. We feel like we can play with any of them. We don't have the numbers they have and we got wore down, but since the weather has cooled off and our kids have gotten conditioned, we've played pretty well."
Wertz: 704-612-9716

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/11/18/2784110/comeback-qb-leads-redhawks.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy


Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/11/2842086/new-proposals-could-use-tune-up.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy