ST. GEORGE — The difference was like night and day.
After struggling mightily with the big play last week against Liberty Christian, the Blue Ridge defensive and special teams coverage units were lights out on Saturday against visiting Flint Hill. On the other side of the ball, the Barons got back to business with a balanced dose of the run and pass while also breaking off a handful of big plays from their own talented skill players en route to a 28-0 victory.
“We’ve got a pretty mature group,” said Blue Ridge coach Del Smith. “We put the LCA game behind us quick and set the crosshairs on Flint Hill immediately after we lost. We came out, executed and got out on them early which we knew we had to do.”
AJ Williams put the Barons on the board on their second possession of the game when he blew past man coverage on a fly route and quarterback Speedy McCauley hit the big receiver for a 58-yard score.
“I felt like if the receivers got the ball a lot today, it was going to open (David Coe) for the long run,” Williams said.
It certainly did. Two drives after Williams scored, Coe broke loose for a 63-yard touchdown to put his team up 14-0. Sophomore Andre Roberts gave the Barons their third score of the first half on a 19-yard run to the outside and Speedy McCaulley put the game away on 2-yard sneak to cap a long drive in the third quarter.
While the offense was impressive, finishing the day with three plays of fifty or more yards in sloppy conditions, nothing stood out more than the clamping down the Barons did defensively. Blue Ridge never allowed a play over 18 yards, and were only pushed back to redzone once. Flint Hill backed the Barons up to the goal line in the final minute of the first half, but Blue Ridge stood strong and forced a turnover on downs. Flint Hill was held to just 23 yards on the ground on 20 attempts, something Smith had hoped for coming into the game.
“(We felt like) if we could make them one dimensional – they don’t quite have the quarterbacks that they did in the past – that passing the ball is a little bit out of character for them,” Smith said. “So you throw the weather into that, we felt like we could really take advantage of a team that doesn’t pass that well. So we got after them and brought the pressure.”
Mike Casey was a monster for Blue Ridge at linebacker, roaming the field from sideline to sideline. The senior from Mannassas racked up 13 tackles, two of which were for a loss.
“Pretty much it was just about flying around the field, going hard and just making tackles,” Casey said. “There was nobody out there taking it slow today.”
McCauley, Coe and Williams led the Barons in passing, rushing and receiving respectively. McCauley was 8 for 18 for 177 yards in the air. Coe piled up 96 yards on 11 carries. Williams had three catches for 82 yards.
The Barons (2-1) will get six days of rest before they hit the road against Covenant on Friday at 4 p.m. Both schools have cruised past Flint Hill while also swallowing their lumps against LCA. Blue Ridge is coming to Charlottesville with a lot of respect for the Eagles after Covenant snuck out a victory in a late fourth quarterback in St.George last year.
“Covenant’s a good football team,” Smith said. “They snuck up on us last year and beat us. We’re definitely not going to sleep on them this time. We’ll be ready.”
