Throw a dart at any of the clichés and you wouldn’t do justice to what Tyler Vest and Devonte Turner put together.
“The holes just opened up,” Vest said. “You’ve got to give the credit this offensive line and the coaches. You see the hole and then you hit it.”
Behind the big line it was dueling banjos, thunder and lightning, smash and dash, whatever you want. With Vest and quarterback and Turner at running back, Nelson County simply had something that a young William Monroe could not find an answer for. And as such, the Governors didn’t exactly dig deep into the offensive play book. It was one spring after another for Vest and Turner in Stanardsville as the duo cranked out 675 rushing yards combined to roll to a season opening 64-47 win.
“These kids have done everything we’ve asked of them since July 30th and we knew we had something special with (Vest) and (Turner),” said Nelson coach Mark Wells. “The offensive did great, they’re a seasoned group, a big group, so it was one of those things. And it’s great to have that first win.”
What shouldn’t be lost in Nelson’s remarkable offensive outbreak is that it was needed in the first half as up until Monroe turned the ball over on back-to-back possession, once on downs and another on an interception to Olajuwan Merdith-Vance, it was a back and forth game as Cody Perkins put together a solid night in the backfield for the Dragons.
“We were trading touchdowns for a while and then we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Monroe coach Mark Sanford. “When you do that and then can’t stop them, it’s hard. You’re going toe-to-toe for a scoring battle where whoever has the ball last wins, but we just couldn’t stop them.”
The two teams alternated scoring drives for six possessions, with botched extra-points making the difference for the Governors at 20-18 with 8:44 to go in the second and Turner piling up the first three touchdowns for his squad.
“You just had to be real quick getting through the blocks, but once you got through there, it was all green grass,” Turner said. “All you had to was run after that.”
As such, Monroe dominated the time of possession with Nelson needing just 32 seconds of time between when Turner crossed he endzone for the first time to when he got there for his third score.
“We really didn’t think about that at the time, but you look over and notice, there’s not much time moving off,” Turner said.
Once the Dragon’s slipped up on the two turnovers, that was it. Vest picked up his first of six touchdown runs, a 15-yarder, the turnovers opened the gates for Nelson. Vest punched in the next two scores for the Governors, this time on respective 58-yard and 48-yard dashes to make it 42-18. While Monroe tacked on a 24-yard touchdown pass from Jack Morris to Eddie Inzana heading into the break, the story was in the stat book with Vest and Turner combining for six TDs and a combined 675 yards on the ground.
“We told the kids we just played probably the best athlete we’ll see all year in Vest, and in (Turner) a kid who’s not too far behind,” Sanford said. “When you’ve got two of those guys and an (offensive) line that’s come light years from where they were last year… you don’t have to hold your blocks for more than a couple of seconds, tenths of a second.”
Vest struck for three more TDs in the third quarter to make it 64-31 and put the game out of hand allowing Wells to work in his second stringers.
“You have to keep your feet going,” Vest said. “It was power running, and we’re more of a speed type of team, but when you get hit, you’ve just got to keep the feet moving.”
Although the Governors came close to running clock, the Dragons made the game interesting late on a pair of touchdowns on a short rushing score from Devon Harris and 4-yard TD reception from Dustin Knight to Inzana linked by an onside kick recovery made it 64-47 with 2:50 left to play. When Monroe grabbed another onside kick, Nelson trotted out its first team defense and forced a fumble to end the threat.
For Monroe, Perkins had 28 carries for 216 yards and three touchdowns. Morris threw for 196 yards and a TD. Dakwan Morris had seven catches for 134 yards, Inzana had three grabs for 28 yards and two scores and Johnnie Villers caught five passes for 106 yards.
But the night truly belonged to Vest and Turner as the only Governors pass all night came on a botches 2-point convert in the third quarter. Turner bruised for 226 yards on 16 carries while Vest took his 19 attempts for 449 yards.
“We’re on the right track,” Wells said. “We’re doing things well now.”
Ditto from Vest.
“This feels really good,” Vest said. “There’s always this big curtain over Nelson and I just wanted to come out and here and prove (what we’ve got).”
Nelson (1-0) heads to Central Lunenburg on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Monroe (0-1) looks to rebound at home against Spotswood also on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
