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Fourth quarter rally sparks Western

After halftime, Western ran and ran and ran again.

With the help of an opportunistic defense, that shift in strategy was enough to rally and knock off a Charlottesville team intent on making a statement against Western. Western finished with the win, knocking off Charlottesville 27-13 despite trailing by six points.

Western put the ball on the ground nine straight times to open the second half. While they failed to score on the drive despite driving down to the 12-yardline, the Warriors firmly established they were going to put the ball in the hands of junior running back Adam Diehl and senior quarterback Stephen Schuler. Diehl, who’d rushed for just 100 yards on 28 touches coming into the game, exploded in the second half and finished the game with 114 all-purpose yards.

“To be honest, I was very excited (about the shift to a run-heavy focus) because I haven’t gotten many touches in previous games,” Diehl said. “But when our passing game was out of rhythm we had to look to the running game.”

Diehl’s steady running set the table for Schuler to connect with Tyler Ward in the corner of the end zone where Ward made a leaping catch on a fade route and kept his feet inbounds on the first play of the fourth quarter. A missed extra point left the game deadlocked at 13-13.

Mitchell Parks, as usual, led the opportunistic defense and came up with three forced turnovers, a pair of interceptions and a forced fumble. The fumble came at a perfect time, with Charlottesville pinned deep in its own territory.

“Our offense, we were clicking but we just couldn’t punch it in,” Parks said. “I knew our defense needed that one big play just to wrap it all up.”

Parks and Dom Losco flew into the hole with Parks coming on a designed blitz, and blasted the Charlottesville ball carrier, who fumbled the ball backwards into the endzone where Western junior cornerback Abbot Wallenborn pounced on it. After the extra point, Western led 20-13, erasing a 13-7 halftime deficit.

Charlottesville collapsed down the stretch, but not before pushing Western to the brink of a costly loss. The Black Knights’ secondary forced a pair of first half interceptions that ended Western drives. Charlottesville also hit a couple of key field goals before the break that seemed to ratchet up the pressure on Western.

“I’ve never seen a coach turn a team around in a year like Chris Fraser has,” said Western coach Ed Pierce. “It’s just an amazing job, they gave us a great fight all night long.”

But after halftime, the Black Knights struggled to move the ball offensively, which made things tough on a defense that was looking for every way to bend but not break against the Western onslaught.

‘We played really good for 44 or 45 minutes,” Fraser said. “We’ve known all along that teams that can run right at us, that’s probably a weakness. But they made plays, and that’s what great teams do. We’re good, but we’re not great.”

Steve Allen had the Black Knights’ only touchdown as Charlottesville leaned on the imposing 6-foot-5 senior as a short yardage back. Adrian Thurston hauled in three catches for 54 yards, including one snag off a tipped ball that was certainly highlight-worthy.

Schuler finished with 49 yards on the ground and 217 through the air. Losco, a multi-talented two way star, seven catches for 87 yards, while Ward also had a strong night with four catches for 44 yards including the touchdown.

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