Monticello couldn’t establish run and they certainly couldn’t pass. Even on three step drops, sophomore quarterback Jhalil Mosley had someone — or several someones — in on top of him immediately.
“We couldn’t protect,” said Monticello coach Brud Bicknell. “And we had trouble getting openings. Our game is play action passing and they took that away.”
Monticello’s offense ground to a halt Saturday afternoon in the Region II, Division 3 and despite a Herculean effort from the Mustangs’ own defense, John Handley’s attacking defense ended Monticello’s season with a 19-0 win.
“We’re mixing up the stunts pretty well — we got after it pretty good,” said Handley coach Tony Rayburn. “But stopping the run was pretty important.”
Things got off to a terrible start for Monticello when the Mustangs muffed the opening kickoff and Handley’s Michael Gordon recovered at the 27-yardline. Four plays later, Handley’s Trae Peck powered in from 10 yards out to give Handley a 6-0 advantage.
“Anytime that happens you start to think ‘oh my gosh’,” Bicknell said. “But we’ve overcome things worse than that before, and it certainly would’ve been nice to have fielded that correctly. You’ve given away a possession in a game that promised to be tight anyway.”
But Monticello’s defense managed to clamp down from there even as the offense began a string of fruitless drives that ended in punts or on a pair of turnovers. An interception finally did allow Handley to score again with just 2:22 left in the half, but it was on a bomb of a 45-yard field goal by Donovan Varney.
Little changed in the second half when the Mustangs again struggled to move the ball. Monticello managed just 100 yards of total offense on 41 plays, with Handley putting the clamps on Monticello senior tailback Jesse Ayres who had just 41 yards on 12 touches. Mosley was 4-for-13 passing for 47 yards.
“We couldn’t generate anything offensively,” Bicknell said. “They’re a really fine football team — we needed to take advantage of a couple of things that we weren’t able to.”
Handley’s one-two punch in the ground game allowed the Judges to control the clock as they ran 74 plays. Peck, a slashing tailback, piled up 161 yards while rumbling fullback Delroy McDaniel finished with 79 yards. Handley completed just two passes, but with the Mutangs’ offense stagnant, that was really all the Judges needed. Peck and Varney tacked on a touchdown and a field goal in the second half to push the advantage to 19-0.
It was the first shutout of a Monticello team since 2005 when Powhatan blanked the Mustangs.
The Mustangs are young at most every position, and they’ll bring back the entire offensive line, Mosley and Isaac Robinson plus a host of other talented players.
Handley advances to the Region II final.
