Mike Hooper had a smile on his face as he came to the locker room soaked after a second half deluge. But it wasn’t because he’d just picked up his first win as a varsity coach at Fork Union — he’s been the Blue Devils junior varsity coach for a long time before this and in nearly three decades of coaching, has won plenty of games. No, his smile was about this group, some of whom he coached at the JV level now getting that first taste of varsity victory after a 27-14 win over Paul VI.
“This is their first — listen, I’ve been in the game for a long time and had my fair share — this win is about them,” Hooper said. “They deserve it. They’ve worked so hard, dealt with so much adversity. You’ve got seven seniors and great bunch of kids that needed this.”
The Blue Devils faced a brutal slate of strong opponents to start the year, and while at 0-4, they did not play like a team hanging their heads and Donovan Benoit set the tone in all three facets of the game. The senior put his team up 7-0 in the first on a short rushing touchdown but he had two much bigger plays down the road.
With the game tied at 7-7 late in the second quarter, Zion Pfifer blocked a punt and there was Benoit to pick it up and run it back for the score to give FUMA a 14-7 going into the break.
“I was talking to Zion before the play and he told me to go outside and he got the ball, I scooped it and then he blocked for me and we scored,” Benoit said.
In the third quarter the Panthers tied things up with lengthy rushing touchdown on a broken assignment.
“They popped one but the guys responded,” Hooper said. “I’m so proud of that.”
The tie didn’t last too long though. Benoit ran for a long touchdown that was called back because of holding, and after a quick breather on the sidelines, he returned to pop off a 50-yard touchdown run where he barreled through the Paul VI secondary en route to the endzone to make it 21-14 with just 1.7 seconds on the clock in the third.
“I didn’t let the flag pull me down, I told the coaches I wanted more,” Benoit said. “The last few weeks hadn’t been great but it was time to turn things around.”
The fourth quarter belonged to the Blue Devils defense as Zach Pace, Benoit and the defensive front owned the line of scrimmage. With the rain coming down hard, the FUMA defense came up with a critical stop on fourth down with 2:31 remaining. Iosefa Pua’uali’s rushing touchdown just over thirty seconds later gave the Blue Devils the insurance that they needed at 27-14. Then on the ensuing Paul VI drive, Nick Farran came up with an interception to allow FUMA to wrap up the win.
“We had a bad game with Georgetown Prep in our second game but each week our effort has improved,” Hooper said. “They’re believing in themselves and they’re executing better each week. We had some penalties but they were effort penalties that we’ll take. We’ll work with that.”
Fork Union (1-4) travels to St. Christopher’s next Saturday at 1 p.m.
