By Drew Goodman / Scrimmageplay.com contributor
Though the two teams had not seen one another in about a year, both Woodberry Forest and Pinecrest High School had a pretty good idea of what to expect in Saturday’s rematch.
The visiting Patriots knew that a half-back pass on the first play from scrimmage would work. It did.
The Tigers knew that quarterback Lindell Stone could have success through the air. He did.
And everyone in attendance knew that the last team that had the ball would emerge victorious.
It almost happened that way.
With Pinecrest trailing by three with less than 20 seconds remaining in the contest, Patriot quarterback Nik Pry hit Chris Owens on a 10-yard fade-route for a touchdown.
The beautifully-executed connection in the end zone marked the eighth and final lead change of the seesaw battle. Woodberry Forest could not reclaim the lead on its shortened final possession, allowing Pinecrest to escape with a thrilling 47-43 triumph over the Tigers.
“The kids did an unbelievable job,” said Pinecrest head coach Chris Metzger following the win. “I had a kid give a speech to the team, a motivational speech, and the theme was ‘one stone.’ He talked about how David did it with one stone, and that was the theme today. Everyone said, ‘one stone’, ‘one heartbeat’, and everyone did it together, and that was pretty special.”
Though it did not get the win, Woodberry Forest got big time performances from the Stone brothers.
One week after passing for 408 yards in a win over Bishop McNamara, Lindell Stone torched the Patriots for 480 yards and four touchdowns. The senior completed an impressive 70 percent of his throws, and his lone interception of the day took place on a Hail Mary on the final play of the game.
Sophomore wide out Parker Stone led the Tigers’ deep receiving corps with six catches on the afternoon. UVa-bound senior Terrell Jana hauled in three catches for 78 yards, and a pair of early touchdowns.
Jana was a part of what might have been one of the most exciting first quarters in Woodberry head coach Clint Alexander’s tenure at the school.
Moments after Pinecrest opened the game with the aforementioned 48-yard halfback pass, Jana slipped past a defender for a 38-yard touchdown grab of his own.
Just like that, the Tigers and Patriots had accounted for two potentially-game-changing plays, with just 1:07 of time gone by.
Jana then scored his second touchdown of the contest on Woodberry’s next offensive possession, to give the Tigers an eight-point advantage.
Lindell Stone and WFS continued to have success against the Patriot secondary. Dequece Carter was the big-play threat, with four catches for a team-high 111 yards. Khalid Thomas was not far behind, with three receptions for 87 yards, including a 35-yard catch-and-run for a score in the final quarter.
When the Patriots adjusted their coverage to account for Woodberry’s speed on the edges however, Alexander knew that he would need to find help elsewhere on offense to continue moving the ball.
That was where tailback, Jameel Wilson came in.
Wilson, who was at times the smallest player on the field, had a tremendous impact for the Tigers in the second half. The 5-foot-6, 166-pound speedster accounted for 103 total yards, and helped Woodberry keep several key drives alive in the final two quarters.
“I thought Jameel played great, he always does,” Alexander noted. “He plays so much bigger than he is. He’s a run-pass threat, and he probably had as many passing yards as he did running. He’s no bigger than a minute, be he has the heart of an elephant.”
Woodberry scored three touchdowns in the first quarter, but the Tigers could not gain much separation on the scoreboard. Woodberry twice led by eight points, but Pinecrest usually had a quick response.
The Tigers had a three-point advantage and the ball late in the third quarter, but the home team could never capture that elusive two-score lead.
After participating in a track meet for the first 45 minutes, Pinecrest flipped the script in the fourth quarter of play.
The Patriots turned to the ground game, and embarked on a methodical 17-play, mostly-rushing drive, that gobbled up over five minutes of clock.
Pry capped off the impressive march with a four-yard run to pay dirt to give Pinecrest the lead, and set the stage for an exciting finish to the contest.
Following several big gains through the air, Lindell Stone scored a rushing touchdown from four yards out with a little more than 100 seconds left to play. The extra point gave the Tigers a late 43-40 lead, but many Woodberry faithful believed that their team scored too early.
It turns out, the Tigers did.
Shortly after the Patriots returned the ensuing kickoff to midfield, Owens was celebrating what would be the game-winning touchdown with 15 seconds left on the clock.
Almost one year exactly after suffering a 13-point defeat on Pinecrest’s home field, the Tigers nearly pulled it off against the 4A powerhouse from the Tarheel State.
“That’s a tough matchup for us; a great program and a huge school,” Alexander said. “They probably get twice as much time with their kids as we do and we had a hard time. We thought we had a defense that would work, it wasn’t working so we had to switch, and then they started pounding on us.”
“That worked, the problem is, we give up that score with 15 seconds left to go.”
Woodberry will look to get back on track this Saturday at home against Bullis of Potomac, Maryland.
