Something was off, and not in a bad way. There was no 100-yard rusher. There wasn’t even a rushing touchdown. A Goochland program that’s built for success on the ground, coming off a 400-yard plus performance against King William the week prior, simply didn’t need it. Behind three passing touchdowns and a pair of defensive scores, the Bulldogs were flat out dominant on Saturday on the road in the Group A Division 2 semifinals against Wilson Memorial.
Behind one explosive play after another and not allowing the Hornets to sniff the goalline, the Bulldogs ran away with their most complete performance of the season. Now a 12-2 Goochland team is headed back to Salem where they lost their only game of the 2011 season to finish some business it meant to take care of last year.
“Wilson’s got a great football team but their game isn’t playing from behind and we got the bounces today,” said Goochland coach Joe Fowler. “If somebody had told me we’d win a state semifinal 35-0 and without a rushing touchdown, I’d have been shocked.”
With the way the Bulldogs’ defense played, this game had just one swing of momentum and it came in the first quarter. After squandering a redzone chance on its opening possession of the game, Goochland took the lead thanks to an 18-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Jordan Jefferson to senior Nathan Adams who beat Wilson’s Malik Rucks on a jump ball right after Jefferson overthrew a similar attempt on the previous play.
“It was a slow drive so I knew we had to get the ball in the air eventually,” Adams said. “I had the height advantage and Jordan just threw it up, I got it and held on for the touchdown.”
The next Goochland possession? On second down deep in its own end, freshman quarterback Reid Chenault fired a bomb down field to Mitchel Brice who tipped it to himself and then took off from midfield for a 78-yard touchdown.
“We’ve really got a two-headed monster here because Jordan can run and Reid can sling it,” Adams said. “But the defense really stepped it up after that.”
He wasn’t lying. For the second and third quarters, it was all about the defense. The Bulldogs took a 21-0 lead just two minutes into the second frame when Nathan Mattox recovered a fumble forced by Rafer Sprouse at midfield and after a brief pause by both teams as the ball sat on the ground, Mattox scooped it and ran it back untouched for 57 yards and the score.
“Rafer forced it and I was confused because everything stopped and there wasn’t a whistle so I just picked it up and ran,” Mattox said. “I was looking back when I was running and was still confused because there was nobody coming after me. Everyone was looking at me like I was crazy.”
If that wasn’t the dagger, it came soon after. With Wilson driving and trying to get something on the board before the break, Connor Saunders picked off a pass at his team’s own 20-yard line and ran it back 80 yards with 46 seconds until the break to make it 28-0.
“Last week we were disappointed that (King William) was able score so many points on us,” Mattox said. “This made us feel good.”
In the third quarter, Wilson took its opening drive on a 7-minute 45-second drive with a fist full of first downs largely behind the running of Rucks. But the Bulldogs defense held firm to force a turnover on downs to eliminate the Hornets best scoring opportunity of the day.
“You come out at half time and kind of want them to run down some clock,” said senior defensive lineman/linebacker Scott Pearce who had the yeoman-like job of just diving into the center of the field on nearly every play to slow Wilson’s pure rushing attack. “It really wasn’t that tiring because it was 2-3 yards at a time so we got a bit of break but that definitely broke their back and we were proud of that.”
Pearce played a similar role in a five-man front against Wilson in 2011 which allows Goochland to easily flex him back to a stand-up linebacker spot if the Hornets show a spread look that they occasionally turn to. But Wilson’s offense being so similar to the approach Goochland takes, the Bulldogs’ defense was able to fall back on its everyday practice against a group that runs wing-t football as well as anyone in the state.
“There’s not going to be many teams that can beat us running the same offense we do because we rep it in practice every day,” Pearce. “This week we went real hard at it and everyone had their own assignment.”
With the game well in hand, Goochland put a bow on it midway through the fourth quarter thanks to a 25-yard run from David Dyer that set up a 3-yard TD pass from Chenault to Mason Engle. After forcing a Wilson punt the ensuing drive, the Bulldogs threw in their second teamers and they managed to earn a first down and run out the clock to preserve the shutout.
The Bulldogs will head to Salem for the second straight season, but with a role reversal. Last year it was an undefeated Goochland squad favored by almost everyone to beat a 2-loss Gretna squad. This time around, it’ll be a 2-loss Bulldog team looking to derail an unbeaten Essex squad and doing so with a core of seniors who remember the sour feeling that brought an end to the 2011 season.
“Last year we were the favorites the whole time and went in thinking nobody could stop us,” Pearce said. “This year we lost a couple of times and we still remember what it felt like losing in Salem. So we’re ready now.”
Kickoff for the Group A Division 2 championship will be at Salem City Stadium at 4 p.m.
