Notebook: Inside the 99-yard drive
This had the staples, the true foot print of a classic Goochland game. In fact, it looked too easy considering the Bulldogs were playing a perfect 14-0 Essex squad, a team with the most statistically prolific passing attack at the Group A level. Save a last second hail-mary to close the first half and a late fourth quarter drive with the game already put away, nothing went the Trojans way.
“The only thing that didn’t go our way was the bus,” said Goochland coach Joe Fowler said. “On the way (to Salem) our bus broke down on I-81 and we had to have a picnic lunch on the exit ramp near Hollins College.”
This was all Goochland, defensively, offensively, any way you cut it. And knowing full well what it’s like to come up one game short of winning it all, the Bulldogs 41-14 drubbing of Essex was a classic redemption story of a team coming full circle in a calendar year.
“I don’t think we ever expected to be here, we thought we had the potential but so many things have to go right and the ball has to bounce your way so many times during the course of a 15-game season,” Fowler said. “I can’t express what an emotional season this was. This was a special group of kids.”
Just like the week prior against Wilson Memorial, there was no pivotal play in this emphatic win. After both teams traded punts to start, Goochland went on the first of its six scoring drives with sophomore quarterback Jordan Jefferson and senior running back Mitchell Brice mounting a lengthy drive. Brice’s 1-yard keeper made it 7-0, and from there, the Bulldogs simply took off.
“We felt like we just wanted to establish our running game and see how they reacted when somebody ran the ball right at them,” Fowler said. “They’ve got some great athletes, some great speed and we felt like we had to pound inside and found more success on the edge that we thought we were going to.”
Getting away from its pass-happy attack, the Trojans had some success on the ensuing drive on the ground behind Raheim Rolling as the running back ran out of the spread and got his team into Goochland territory. Facing fourth-and-long but too far out for a field goal, the Trojans tried to keep the drive alive but a short screen was snuffed out by Goochland.
“In practice we ran a lot of seven-on-seven and the defensive line worked on its pass rushing techniques to get to the quarterback,” said senior lineman Josh Kit. “This year we came into the game relaxed and I think that’s how we wound up playing better.”
It took little time for the Bulldogs to capitalize on the turnover on downs with Brice tearing off his longest run of the game, a 29-yarder to the right edge of the field to make it 14-0 in the waning moments of the first quarter.
Essex took the following kickoff – a squib up the middle – for 50 yards to start in the redzone, needing a score. The Trojans’ sophomore quarterback Domenik Broaddus then tried to make something happen, extending a passing play but then firing long into the endzone for his intended receiver right into the hands of Goochland’s Mason Engel. The senior safety took it out for a 50-yard return. Again the Bulldogs marched downfield, nickel and diming away behind its bevy of backs. Connor Saunders capped the drive with a 4-yard run to make it 21-0.
After a lull by both sides offensively, Goochland took a 27-point lead with less than a minute to play with another slow but consistently positive drive with Brice punching in his second rushing TD of the game, a 3-yarder.
“We found out (early) what we could run and then just kept attacking,” Brice said.
Essex’s lone meaningful score came with the clock winding down in the first half. At the Bulldogs 30-yard line with four seconds on the clock and facing fourth and long, Broaddus put up a prayer that Alonzo Tompkins somehow answered by elevating above a waiting Goochland secondary. That cut the deficit 21 points at the break.
In the start of the third quarter, Goochland put a dagger in Essex’s heart starting with Jefferson running down a Broaddus bomb at the Bulldogs 1-yard line for an interception. Then the deep backfield went on a 15-play 99-yard drive with sophomore back David Dyer hammering in a 2-yard rushing touchdown with 3:19 left in the third. If that wasn’t enough, the Bulldogs recovered an onside kick and a 29-yard touchdown run from Saunders just two minutes later made it 41-6.
“The whole offensive line blocked well all game, and the receivers too,” Jefferson said. “Everyone just opened up holes.”
The fourth quarter flew by with the game well in hand. Essex went one-for-two on redzone drives with the Bulldogs successfully putting up a goalline stand midway through the frame, but the Trojans came up with a 2-yard rushing score from Leo Gaskins followed by a 2-pt convert from Broaddus in the last minute of play.
It was too little and way too late. As such, this year had a much brighter note to end on for Goochland. Two weeks into September, the Bulldogs were sitting at 1-2 after back-to-back losses to Fork Union and Monticello. Of course in hindsight it’s easy to point out that FUMA played for a VISAA Division 1 state championship while the Mustangs played for a Group AA Division 4 Region II championship, both of them just coming up short. But nonetheless, the start of the year was not what this Bulldogs team was accustomed to, especially after winning their first 14 games of last year.
Yet despite some murmors around Central Virginia, Goochland’s players and coaches never panicked. Instead they learned from their experience, both from this season and last and reeled off 12 straight wins to bring back the school’s first state title since 2006. In this last game of the season, it was a reversal of roles from last year’s state title game. In 2011, Gretna, a 2-loss team came in as underdogs looking to unseat undefeated Goochland. This year, it was the Bulldogs as the 2-loss team looking to take down an unbeaten and they did just that. From start to finish, this Goochland team looked comfortable on every play, in every situation.
“(We had) no nerves this year,” said Bulldogs senior linebacker Nathan Adams. “We got rid of that last year. The whole game we were calm and cool.”
It showed for 48 minutes. One year ago this team left the field thinking they were just one play short of a state title. This year, they made up for it, heading home with the sought after trophy with the kind of victory that nobody can say they didn’t overwhelmingly deserve.
