By Drew Goodman / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
Very little clicked offensively for Fluvanna’s football team in much of Friday’s season opener against Bluestone.
Outside of a one-play drive that consisted of a 17-yard strike from Ethan Graves to Joey Vandyke, the Flucos rarely found themselves in position to crack the scoreboard.
With the game on the line midway through the fourth quarter, however, Fluvanna offensive coordinator Mitchell Pace decided to shift has strategy.
That shift took place at the line of scrimmage.
Facing a pivotal third-down-and-goal from the nine-yard line, Pace instructed Vandyke and a trio of Fluco receivers, who had been all been lining up on the left side for much of the drive, to slide over to the right.
After some initial confusion on both sides, the correct pieces moved into place, and the 6-foot-2, 225-pound Vandyke took advantage of a mismatch with the secondary. Mimicking a power forward in the low post on a basketball court, Vandyke boxed out his smaller defender and came up with an acrobatic one-handed grab to score the go-ahead touchdown with 5:46 left to play.
“They wanted me one-on-one with a corner… I’ve always been told in practice just to box them out since I’m bigger than most corners that I play,” Vandyke said of the touchdown reception. “I was kind of confused because we had been lining up quads-left the whole time and [coach] said ‘switch’, and it was just me over here, and then everyone came over, and I just improvised.”
Vandyke’s two touchdowns and Graves’ two made extra points proved to be the difference in Fluvanna’s 14-12 triumph over visiting Bluestone.
Vandyke was undoubtedly the standout performer on offense, but the junior had to share the spotlight with a host of contributors on the other side of the ball.
The Fluvanna defense helped compensate for seven Fluco offensive giveaways in the first 36 minutes of the game, including a fumble that was recovered for a touchdown.
Thankfully for the Flucos, a different defensive hero stepped up every time the Barons appeared poised to take control of the contest.
Shortly after Bluestone (0-1) regained the lead in the fourth quarter, the Barons threatened to put the game out of reach on their next drive. With the visitors enjoying a fresh set of downs following a roughing the kicker penalty, junior Prophett Harris, who had made several key deflections earlier in the game, hauled in a crucial interception at midfield.
The athletic play breathed life into the home sideline, and gave the Fluvanna offense another chance to take control of the seesaw battle.
“The inside receiver ran it outside and I was able to read it to get out there and make the big play,” said Harris of his game-changing pick. “It was a lot of energy out there. We were able to get the stop when we were aggressive on it.”
Showing no signs of fatigue following the big interception, Harris soon came back onto the field on offense and delivered a 36-yard catch-and-run to set up Vandyke’s second touchdown.
Senior Ryan Tyree also made a big play, picking off Bluestone quarterback Dale Sturdifen on the Barons’ second-to-last drive, which allowed Fluvanna to milk roughly 2:30 off of the clock and cause the visitors to burn all of their timeouts.
Fellow defensive back Austin Craig also notched an interception earlier in the game, and his teammates throughout the Fluvanna secondary made their presence felt in Friday’s win. Defensive backs Drew Hamshar and Jonathon McDaniel each made huge open-field tackles to thwart the Barons in the red zone on two separate occasions in the first half. With time winding down in the second quarter McDaniel chased Sturdifen to the turf at the seven-yard-line to preserve the shutout heading into intermission.
Between the heads-up plays by the secondary and the pressure up front by junior linebacker Nathan Smith and senior defensive end Austin Porter among others, Fluvanna head coach Steve Szarmach had plenty of reasons to be happy with his defense.
“We had a lot of people step up,” Szarmach noted. “What we try and do is, what other teams do with us, we try to find weaknesses and exploit them. We saw some things that we were doing good and bad and saw some things that they were doing good and bad, and it’s like a chess match.”
The Fluvanna defense limited Bluestone’s explosive offense to just one touchdown, and that scoring drive started at the Fluco 23-yardline. The Barons first cracked the scoreboard in the third quarter when senior Walter Evans picked up a fumble and raced 42 yards to the end zone.
The triumph marked Fluvanna’s first season-opening win since the program’s 33-22 victory at Prince Edward County on August 26, 2011. The celebration started as the student body poured onto the field shortly after Bluestone’s team exited into the locker room.
The Flucos will now turn their attention to a Spotsylvania club which represented Fluvanna’s lone win in 2017. In the midst of all of the jubilation surrounding the 1-0 start, the Flucos are looking to improve on their mistakes and implement those lessons into week two.
“I think the ability to bounce back from adversity might be an indication of what this team is all about,” Szarmach said. “As you try to turn a program around, you’re looking for that positive thing to happen. Preseason was good; we saw a lot of things that we need to work on and we’re working hard.”
The Flucos (1-0) will travel to Spotsylvania next Friday night at 7 p.m.
