Coming in on paper it had all the makings of a prize fight. It played out like one too, with one hay-maker met by another. There was never more than a one possession lead between Albemarle and Powhatan. In the end, the Patriots defense was able to come up with one more fourth quarter stop than the Indians could. And so on a night where the running backs — Powhatan’s Justin DeLeon and Albemarle’s Jamal Thompson — were the dueling stars of the show, it was the Patriots defense late in the fourth quarter and the quarterback play from J’quan Anderson inbetwen that was the difference in a 35-28 road win.
“We’re better up front this year than we were last year and sometimes I think we take for granted the progress we’re making because of that,” said Albemarle coach Brandon Isaiah. “(Powhatan) coach Jim Woodson always has a physical group, has his team coached up and we knew that coming in and challenged our guys all week in practice. We had to be able to run the football like we did to win this game.”
When Powhatan tied the game up at 21-21 after a Jacob Oglesby 33-yard touchdown pass to Jonathan Arnold and subsequent 2-point convert, what was already a great game got even more intense. On the ensuing kickoff, the Patriots saw senior Tyquan Rose leave the game with a concussion. After a delay, on the next play from scrimmage, Thompson had his best run of the night, a 63-yard dash up the middle to give his team a 28-21 lead.
“There was a lot happening there at that moment,” Thompson said. “(Tyquan) is my brother and I’ve been playing with him since growing up. I did that for him, he’d do the same for me and we’ll always play like that. The last (quarter) we knew what we’re playing for.”
Oddly enough, Powhatan responded in some-what similar fashion. The game came to another halt when Albemarle’s Connor Berner was injured at the bottom of the pile on the ensuing kickoff. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital and later cleared after the game. However, the Indians came out of the break strong with DeLeon nearly scoring on an 80-yard run and Ross Lewis following up with a 4-yard TD run with 9:39 left to tie things up at 28-28.
“With DeLeon it’s just another great running back we’ve had to face,” Isaiah said. “We went from Malik Bell and Job Whalen at Louisa to DeAngelo Hunt and Tre Smith at Orange to Sabias Folley, Tre Durret and Lorenzo Louderback at Charlottesville… and now DeLeon? That kid can run the ball 40-50 times, he’s amazing. And (Coach Woodson) knows how to run the ball. I told the guys what to expect. We just had to keep playing. Yes, they made it hard for us, but you have to keep playing.”
What ensued was a taxing drive from Albemarle with Thompson and Anderson moving the chains. The Patriots chewed up five minutes and an 8-yard bootleg run from Anderson gave the visitors a 35-28 edge with 4:59.
Albemarle’s defense answered the call by forcing a punt with just under three minutes to go. Anderson and Thompson were able to burn through Powhatan’s three timeouts when they converted on one first down. And two more first downs finished off the clock and the game.
“We’ve been practicing on blocking all week, looking forward to this game all week,” Anderson said. “Once we got here we were ready. We weren’t nervous. We went down 7-0, we’ve been there before, been down by more before. It wasn’t anything new, our coaches told us to stick together and we did. We finished this game out together for Tyquan and Connor. They’re are brothers and when they went down we played harder.”
The Patriots took a 14-7 lead in the first half but actually trailed 7-0 with DeLeon capping a game opening drive. Albemarle answered with a 42-yard run from Thompson to tie things up in the middle of the first. Then the Patriots took the lead early in the second quarter when Anderson unleashed an impressive 11-yard run that shook off a pair of Powhatan defenders. The Indians missed a field goal from 21-yards out late in the second but the Powhatan defense came up with a stop backed up in the redzone to keep Albemarle from going up by two possessions into the break.
The Patriots (6-2, 4-1 Jefferson District) will host Monticello (3-5, 1-4)
