When your opposition is facing your second team defense in the redzone and throws a fade to the corner of the endzone and it goes off the receiver’s face mask and some how a defender makes a play that shouldn’t happen — Henry Joyner in this case, magically sliding in to grab an interception — well, it’s just simply your day.
There’s really no other way to put how Woodberry’s afternoon with Fork Union went with the Prep League championship on the line. It was their day from the word go. The Tigers were up by two possessions before the Blue Devils ever ran a play from scrimmage. Thanks to a monster first quarter with quarterback Lindell Stone and his receivers simply erupting, Woodberry rolled to a 56-28 win to wrap up a third straight Prep title and for all intents and purposes, its regular season.
“We had the best week of practice we had all season long,” said Tigers coach Clint Alexander. “We were excited about trying to win the Prep League championship and felt really confident in the offensive plan we had for what they had done previously defensively and then watched it work… I’ve never (seen us) score 42 points in a quarter.”
Yea, that first quarter though. It was a game in itself, just over 40 minutes long. It featured 42 points and 271 passing yards. It was simply more than Fork Union could handle out of the gate.
“It was disappointing because we thought we could compete for a Prep League championship and we just shot ourselves in the foot,” said Blue Devils coach Brian Hurlocker said. “Obviously it takes a lot more than what we did in the second half to recover from what happened in the first.”
It started with a big strike from Stone to senior Zach Roderick. The 66-yard touchdown with 10:53 was the first of six in the quarter. Fork Union fumbled the ensuing kickoff and that allowed Stone to set up a short score with Khalid Thomas hauling in a 5-yard pass to make it 14-0 just over a minute later.
“It was a lot of fun and I think its what happens when everyone executes and does their job,” Stone said. “You get 11 guys doing the right thing on every play usually it turns out well. Give credit to our offensive line, receivers and running backs, just doing their job. That’s going to continue to happen if they execute.”
Two minutes afterwards, another Tigers touchdown. It’s hard to argue which was more impressive, Stone’s throw or the way Terrell Jana caught up to it, but either way it resulted in a 49-yard TD pass with 7:01 left in the first. Thirty seconds after that, Stone hit Evans Riviere for a 16-yard screen pass and it was 28-0. Less than two minutes later, after a Logi Portugal interception, Riviere punched in a 9-yard rushing TD. Just to bring things full circle, Stone hit Roderick two minutes later on a quick hitter and he housed it 76 yards to make it 42-0 with 2:33 still left in the first. Needless to say, it was a blur.
“You just have to get the ball into the hands of the playmakers, that’s all I tried to do,” Stone said. “All these guys made huge runs after the catch. It made my job pretty easy.”
Early in the second quarter, the Tigers kept at it with Stone hitting Jana with a quick pass and the junior taking it 50 yards for the score. With the game clearly out of reach, Woodberry turned to its rushing attack with Riviere and Jameel Wilson. They melted away at the clock and then Wilson put Woodberry up 56-0 after his 5-yard run into the endzone.
FUMA broke up the shutout in the last seconds of the first half with Iosefa Poualli capping a drive with a 1-yard rush. With Woodberry’s second string offense and defense in during the second half, the Blue Devils make substitutions of their own and saw some success. Adisa Gittens-Smith started the second half with a 76-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. Then at the end of the third, Gittens-Smith scored from 18-yards out to make it 56-21 with 1:17 to play in the third. FUMA wrapped up the scoring with a 20-yard TD pass from Luke Wilson to Logan Justice with 3:30 to play. The Blue Devils recovered an onside kick, but with the Tigers first team defense back on the field, the game ended quickly thereafter.
“We were never going to quit, we don’t care what the score is, quitting isn’t us,” Hurlocker said. “I feel bad for the seniors, that they couldn’t end the year with a win. We’re young and we’ve got work to do in the offseason. And hopefully we learn a lesson from this and get ourselves in better position for next year.”
The stat line at the end of the day? Stone finished 14-for-17 with 372 yards and six touchdowns. Riviere, as he always seems to do, quietly rushed for 108 yards on 17 carries. Roderick had two catches, two TDs and 145 yards. Jana had four catches, two touchdowns and 152 yards. Woodberry finished with 523 yards of offense. The Tigers defense grabbed three interceptions and forced two fumbles.
“I think we’re finally healthy and knowing their scheme, what they were trying to do personnel wise, we felt like we just had to win up front and keep the pad level low, all those defensive concepts and squeezing the ball to the center of the field,” Alexander said. “So we’ve made it to the bowl game. If our offense plays like this, we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
Fork Union (4-6) ends its season while Woodberry (8-2) will finish up with its road meeting with Episcopal on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Tigers have won six of the last seven but fell last year coming into the meeting unbeaten. This year the Maroon sit at 6-0, although they play a vaunted 6-2 Georgetown Prep squad today before they meet with the Tigers.
