Stories

Madison County football thumps Riverside

Photo by John Berry

uva madison

 

Six minutes into the first quarter of Madison County’s 47-6 win against visiting Riverside, do-everything junior running back Isiah Smith scored on a 10-yard rush for the game’s first touchdown.

 

The Mountaineer offense ran a grand total of three plays between that point and the 6:06 mark of the second quarter. But by that time, they led 21-0, all thanks to Smith.

 

On the first play of the second quarter, Smith picked a fumble by Riverside’s Tim Sorensen out of the air and took it 45 yards to the house for a 14-0 lead. Then, after the Mountaineers forced a Riverside three-and-out, Smith took a punt the same distance for a three-touchdown lead with 10 minutes to go before halftime. In 14 minutes of game time, Smith had already scored on offense, defense and special teams.

 

“I honestly had no clue that was going to happen tonight,” Smith said.

 

Smith’s display was just the beginning of an avalanche by the Mountaineers, who completely outclassed the overmatched Rams in Madison’s second straight win after an 0-3 start.

 

“It feels good to get two in a row after last week’s win over Warren County,” Madison head coach Stuart Dean said. “It definitely makes for a more fun week of practice.”

 

Madison’s defense came to play as well, recording an interception and two fumble recoveries, including Smith’s scoop-and-score. The Mountaineers also forced the Rams (0-6) into four turnovers-on-downs. The lone hiccup came in with 2:05 left in the third quarter, when Riverside receiver Andrew Lewis got behind the secondary and hauled in a 90-yard touchdown pass from Blake Kinkoph.

 

But by that point, the game was all but decided. After Smith’s punt return, Madison quarterback Chris Smith (no relation to Isiah) threw a pair of touchdown passes in the late stages of the second quarter, the first to Dre Twyman from 53 yards out and the second a 42-yarder to Dylan Breeden to give Madison a 35-0 lead at the break.

 

“We wanted to go in with the mentality of ‘get a great start and then never look back,'” Dean said. “We wanted to keep our foot down and that’s exacrtly what we did.”

 

Isiah Smith made a brief reappearance on the second-half kickoff, taking it all the way to the Riverside three-yard line to set up Chris Smith’s keeper to extend the lead to 41-0. He didn’t see the field again after that, but he’d done more than enough to earn the second half off.

 

His backup, Xavion Gentry, got into the act in the final minute of the third quarter with a 47-yard touchdown run to complete the scoring. Gentry actually led the Mountaineers in rushing with 68 yards on five carries. Smith totaled 55 yards on four carries.

 

“It’s definitely good to see our backups who have been working hard all season finally have their time,” Smith said.

 

On the other side of the ball, Madison limited Riverside to 227 yards of total offense, well over a third of that output coming on Lewis’ touchdown catch.

 

The Mountaineers return to action next Friday when they host Central-Woodstock in their homecoming game at 7:30 p.m.

Comments

comments