Between a handful of penalties and another handful of turnovers, there is still plenty of work left to be done. But be that as it may, the one thing you can’t deny is that Charlottesville is winning football games. Coming off of a big time road victory at Goochland last week, the Black Knights extended their winning streak to three games after they beat visiting William Monroe 34-17.
“We should have been better tonight, but I was happy with the defense,” said Charlottesville coach Chris Fraser. “They got some big stops and put us in good position.”
With a stout defensive unit that surrendered just three points in the first three quarters of play, Charlottesville got the job done offensively by riding five different runners for at least 28-yards each, with Raymond Parker leading the way with 7 carries, 113 yards and two touchdowns on the night
“It feels good to be contributing to the team again because I’m kind of nursing a groin injury so I didn’t know if I was going to play or not,” said Parker, who also had an interception on defense. “The first two games we were fighting hard in practice and it showed but we weren’t winning. Then we turned it on even more in practice, and now we’ve got three victories.”
Before the Knights put up 27 unanswered points in stretch between the first and fourth quarters, William Monroe actually drew first blood in the game after blocking a Charlottesville punt and turning the field position into a 27-yard field goal.
After that though, the Knights dug in, passing the ball just five times as Parker, Xavier Porter, Daniel Chmil and averaged 13 yards per carry as a unit to accumulate 320 yards total, but four fumbles dented an otherwise outstanding perforamce.
“We just can’t put the ball on the ground like that,” Fraser said. “I was a little disappointed in that, but that’s us still learning. We still need to get better to become a good team yet.”
Unfortunately, the Knights suffered a sizable scare in the fourth quarter when Chmil, who plays prominently on both sides of the ball, went down with a knee injury. The extent of the injury is unknown but the Charlottesville senior will undergo an MRI and find out the results on Monday.
While the game was out of reach in the fourth quarter, that didn’t stop Monroe from playing hustle football until the end as the Dragons tacked on 14 points on a pair of Markees Towles touchdown receptions. The junior had a big game catching the ball out of the backfield and finished with 105 yards on seven catches, almost all of which came in the fourth quarter.
“The first thing we told the team after the game was that we are proud of them for not quitting,” said Monroe coach Mark Sanford. “It’s easy when you’re 0-4 or 0-5 and just cash in the chips. Our guys are continuing to work and fight. We’re young, we’re small, but we’re fighting. We cannot ask any more of them than to continue to fight like that.”
The Dragons (0-5, 0-2 Jefferson will travel to Fluvanna County on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Charlottesville (3-2, 2-0) will host Western Albemarle on the same night, also at 7:30 p.m.
