While the first half wasn’t up to the usual Buckingham County par, the Knights still had the lead. It took a Central Lunenburg interception return for a touchdown early in the third quarter to do the trick for the Knights. From that point forward Buckingham played with purpose, responding with a 4-play scoring drive to reclaim the lead and ultimately 30 unanswered points as they blew by the Chargers in the second half to the tune of a 49-21 victory with three different 100-yard rushers.
“Boy, that interception really woke them up,” said Buckingham coach Craig Gill. “I was really proud of the offensive line. You hear about our quarterback, the running backs and our wide receivers all the time but we’ve got five kids that work really hard up front. They flexed the muscle in the third quarter and we were able to run the ball. That took some life out of Central, the way were able to do that.”
Up 19-14 out of the break, Lunenburg lit a spark for the Knights when an errant play put the home team behind by two. Buckingham came to the sidelines angered and returned to the field after the kickoff looking entirely different as the offensive line mashed would-be defenders and running back Peanut Johnson flew down field on a 41-yard touchdown scamper to reclaim the lead for his team and then ran in the 2-point covert to make it 27-21.
“When the line blocks like that, it’s just good running,” Johnson said.
Early in the fourth quarter after Cody Hunter forced and recovered a fumble for the Knights, Kyree Koonce capped a long Knights drive with a 4-yard run on a series that did not feature a single pass, just himself, Johnson and Ayers on the ground plowing through Lunenburg’s defense. This time around it was Cam Johnson that came up with a 2-point convert on a fake PAT to put the Knights up 14.
“I really felt like the game was too close for how high-powered our offense is,” Ayers said. “In the air we struggled a bit because of the different blitzes and looks they threw at us, but I thought our ground game really came through and got the job done.”
Any chances the Chargers had of a comeback were put to rest on a 60-yard interception return from Ayers. And just for good measure Koonce ran in a 30-yard rushing touchdown to make it a 28-point win late In the fourth.
“It was all about the line, they blocked really well tonight,” Koonce said. “(Peanut and I) we’re young but we feel like we’ve got talent like the seniors.”
On the day, Koonce finished with 10 carries for 103 yards while Peanut Johnson had 105 on his 12 touches. Ayers added 100 yards on the ground on 16 attempts and also was 8-18 passing for 136 yards, 99 of which went to Briley on four receptions.
It was back and forth to start the game with the Knights scoring to start the first on a 9-yard touchdown throw from Ayers to Landon Allen. Late in the first Lunenburg answered on a long drive to knot the game up at seven. One of the most impressive plays took place in the second when Cam Johnson made a spectacular grab in triple coverage on fourth and 10 to move the chains and set up a 10-yard Koonce rushing touchdown. Buckingham went up 19-7 shortly there after on a scramble from Ayers that allowed him to heave a 60-yard bomb to Cam Johnson. With five minutes until the break, the Chargers cut the deficit to five points.
“I think it took us a full half to get used to their offense,” Ayers said. “We didn’t really have to do much different in the second half but buckle down and do our jobs.”
Buckingham drove down into the redzone just before the half but a pair of incompletions in the endzone in the final seconds left them without a score.
The Knights (5-1, 3-1) head to Cumberland on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
