It’s a simple green plastic bucket with a white piece of tape around it.
But it makes a lot of noise when Western Albemarle senior linebacker Tommy Mullin carries it.
That’s because there are a pile of nails and horseshoes in the bottom.
“You can bend a nail, but you can’t break one,” said first-year head coach Ed Redmond, who’s forged the team’s defensive identity around the idea. “Especially those old rusty ones.”
For five weeks, Mullin has carried the bucket to every practice, to every team meeting, to every warm-up where you can hear the bucket and its contents as the Warriors make their way onto the field.
“It let’s the team know that we need to be tough like that, tough as nails — shaking it when we show up, when we’re heading into the locker room at halftime,” Mullin said. “It’s a huge symbol.”
After a 28-0 loss at the hands of the Warriors Saturday night, Monticello likely wishes that bucket and the defense it’s come to symbolize never showed up.
Western harassed, terrorized and picked off Monticello from start to finish Saturday, intercepting four passes and returning two of them for touchdowns while shutting down the Mustangs ground game by allowing just 48 rushing yards. The combination turned into the Warriors’ first ever shutout of a team from Monticello High in the rivalry’s history.
“We could not run the ball,” said Monticello coach Rodney Redd. “If you’d told me that we’d have 48 yards rushing I wouldn’t have believed it. Obviously, as many talents as we have, the key for us is being able to run the ball and they took that away.”
Mullin and the Warriors’ defensive line were in the Mustangs’ backfield all night forcing errant throws and bottling up a rushing attack that was averaging 211.5 yards per outing coming into the contest. The Warriors allowed just 1.4 yards per rushing attempt on the night and changed the entire course of the game in the process.
“(Mullin is) just a solid competitor, he read his keys real well,” Redmond said. “These kids listen — when you tell them something one time they listen.”
That set the table for the secondary, which came up with four picks, three of them by Nic Drapanas. He seemed to have the back-breaker when he snagged a fourth quarter pass and raced in for a touchdown from 25 yards out to put the Warriors up 21-0.
“Two years of playing (defensive back) and I’ve never had a pick,” Drapanas said. “It feels good.”
Steven Hearn had the other interception, making a leaping snag on Monticello’s opening drive before sprinting in and diving inside the pylon for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
“We really stepped it up this week in practice, we realized that we had to get a lot tougher,” said Western quarterback Kent Henry. “T.J. is a hard runner and Jhalil is a great athlete. (Hearn’s pick six) really picked us up, especially after dying out on offense (on their first drive), we really needed to change the momentum.”
Henry put the Warriors up 14-0 with a 1-yard plunge that he helped set up with a touch pass down the sideline for 39 yards when Daniel Kuzjak was ruled out at the one. Henry also tossed a 32-yard touchdown to Isaiah Cowan to make it 28-0 with 6:24 to play that all but put the game out of reach for the Mustangs. Henry finished with 101 yards on the ground and 195 through the air, with his three interceptions marring an otherwise productive night.
Kuzjak had three catches for 66 yards and Hearn hauled in three catches for 54 yards.
Monticello couldn’t grind it out so they took to the air. But the Mustangs’ receivers couldn’t seem to create a lot of space in the secondary, leading to the barrage of interceptions.
“There was a concern going into the game that if we got into a situation where we put the ball up in the air that they had very capable athletes,” Redd said. “That they could make plays back there. And that definitely came true tonight.”
Monticello will try and bounce back against Charlottesville next week while the Warriors will look to stay unbeaten in Jefferson District play against defending champion Powhatan at home.
