You can forgive Dom Christmas if he didn’t know exactly what to say.
For one, he was excited after Western’s win over Fluvanna County. Secondly, what transpired in the first half had never happened before to the Warriors’ junior defensive end, a renowned hard worker.
“First I wasn’t really expecting it, I thought YaYa was going to come around and I was going to get that tackle, but he threw it and I said ‘oh, let’s see what happens’,” Christmas said. “I don’t even know what happened after that. I got the ball and everybody was like ‘good job man’ and I was like ‘uhh’. You don’t understand man, it was just great.”
When Anderson slung a pass while in the grips of a Western defender to avoid a drive-killing sack, Christmas intercepted the ball and raced 25 yards for a touchdown to put the Warriors up by three scores. From there, the rout was on as Western rolled 45-0 over the Flucos.
Christmas’ interception that hit him directly in the chest certainly made several of his teammates happy.
“He works really hard every day, in the offseason and in practice every day,” said Western senior Zack Robb. “That was a good moment, I don’t think he knew what to do — he was pretty excited.”
Christmas and the Warriors rolled behind a sterling defensive effort that held Fluvanna County to about 50 yards of total offense as the Flucos’ frustrating season came to a close. Fluvanna has been ravaged by injuries all season which showed in particular up front. The Fluvanna run game faced a multitude of Warrior defenders in the backfield all night and Robb laid one monster hit in the second half that caused a fumble. Anderson had little or no time to operate in the passing game.
“Western is an extremely well coached team, they’re very fundamentally sound and we just didn’t come with our best today from the top all the way down,” said Fluvanna coach Jason Barnett. “I’m just proud of the way that our guys fought all year long. We haven’t had a day off since August 2 (Fluvanna had no bye weeks) and they came in every day ready to work, win or lose. People don’t see that on Friday but I see it Monday through Thursday.”
Western also had its way early on in the contest, jumping out to a 14-0 lead behind a balanced effort from sophomore quarterback Kent Henry. Henry rushed for 107 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries as the Warriors leaned on the zone read per usual in the run game.
“We’ve been slow starters the last couple of games,” said Western coach Ed Pierce. “We harped on that all this week and I think coming out and getting the running game established early on a cold, wet night…I think it gave us some momentum to build some confidence.”
Henry threw for another 182 yards and two touchdowns on 8-for-14 passing. Austin Ellis, the Warriors’ leading receiver on the year, hauled in three catches for 84 yards including a touchdown.
Tanner Knight had a rushing touchdown and 20 yards on five carries.
The game appeared to solidify a playoff spot for the Warriors, but Skyline’s upset of Sherando tied Skyline for the eighth spot in the Region II playoffs. With a single game left against Louisa County, it’s unclear now how the points will shake out for the Warriors.
