Woodberry Forest coach Clint Alexander had one simple request from his offense as he and coaches tried to adjust the defense with the insane pace that Bishop McNamara (MD) was running — he needed three touchdowns in the second half. Of course, he needed that because he went into the half down by two, and only thanks to a Logi Portugual interception with two minutes left and a pass defended with time expiring in the second quarter by Terrell Lana, did the Tigers find themselves trailing by just one possession.
“(Bishop McNamara) is such a good team, we watched them last week,” Alexander said. “We were shocked. They’re so big, so physical, so fast — how do you match up? … The prize fight is what I talked about at halftime, that this was an Ali-Frazier fights that goes 15 rounds. I asked the offense for three scores in the second half.”
The Woodberry offense answered the call, and after it did, the Tigers vaunted defense — the staple of this program for so many years during Alexander’s tenure — did the exact same from there on out. After the Mustangs made it 18-10 by scoring on a long drive to open the third quarter, Woodberry reeled off 27 unanswered to come from behind and win big over the Mustangs, 37-18, in the Tigers’ first ever home night game at Porterfield Park in Orange County.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve ever won without (running a training camp),” Alexander said. “In (our 117 year) program history we were 0-11 doing that. We had to do it this way this year, so I told the boys, when we start practicing I needed them to already be in shape, we couldn’t work on conditioning. They came to our first practice and they were ready. It was hot, humid and they ready. We couldn’t have done this if the kids didn’t come in shape and to their credit they worked on their own in the summer so that we could practice just for (this game).”
Things changed drastically during an eight minute spurt in the third quarter. After the McNamara touchdown to start the third, Woodberry quarterback Lindell Stone found his favorite receiver from last year, Zach Roderick on a couple of short passes. A few plays later he hit Roderick for a 30-yard TD strike to make it 18-16. Of course, wrapped up in all of the third quarter melee was that starting Tigers running back Evans Riviere went down with cramps. That opened up the opportunity for sophomore running back Jameel Wilson to tote the ball and he did not squander the chance. Just two minutes after the Tigers cut the deficit to just two points, Wilson hauled in a 29-yard screen pass and then put his team up 23-18 on a 12-yard rushing TD.
“I was a little nervous coming out because it was my first game playing at this competition level,” Wilson said. “But once I got in the flow of the game, it was just fun being out there. Once I got confident I was rolling.”
With just over a minute to play in the third, Woodberry picked up Alexander’s coveted third scoring play with Stone finding Roderick for a 32-yard touchdown pass this time to make it 30-18. And after the Tigers defense came up with a stop on fourth down with just over five minutes to play in the fourth, Wilson scored on the ensuing play on an 18-yard rushing TD to wrap up the scoring at 37-18.
“This was just a lot of fun, and they’re a great team and Coach Alexander really challenged us,” Stone said. “Our team is so resilient, we have this love and bond with each other… I’ve been talking about this a lot, that this is a new era of Woodberry football. We’re not playing the cupcake teams that we did in the past. I told Zach and (offensive lineman) Clark Yarborough that when I got here, that we want to be the number one team in the state, public or private. We’re on our way. You have to play the tough teams to do that and I think we just got started on the right foot.”
While the Tigers found themselves in a whole early the third, Woodberry actually started out the game on a strong note, with Stone throwing a 35-yard bomb to Jana on the game’s opening drive to make it 7-0. But McNamara, with its no huddle offense and shifty quarterback Ramar Williams, gave the Tigers a test. The Mustangs scored on their first two drives, both on 2-yard touchdown runs from Williams to cap lengthy drives in terms of plays, but quick ones in terms of clock as they ran a play nearly every 20 seconds.
“Their quarterback, Williams, he works the offense so well and then he’ll take it himself too — he was the leading rusher by 450 yards last year and he has great running backs, he looked like Michael Vick out there at times tonight,” Alexander said. “So we knew he had to roll some guys because they wanted to take us vertical, take us vertical and then let him loose. But I think it caught up to them in the end.”
Woodberry’s secondary with Portugual, Bebe Olanyian and Michael Davenport had a huge game. And with Rodderick and Jana helping out on a pair of fourth down stops, the Tiger’s defensive backs looked as good as ever, which considering last year, is saying something. But if anyone stole the show defensively it was Joseph Stephenson who had a monster night tackling and made more one-handed touchdown-saving jersey tackles than the Tigers would have liked to have seen. Nonetheless, it all worked out in the end for the defense.
“Coach always tells us to grab cloth,” Stephenson said. “The DB’s helped out a lot, the D-line was great, this was a team effort. My grip strength had nothing to do with (this win). First half I think we just had the jitters. But we were rolling people every play, getting fresh and I feel like we had a great plan and it just worked in the end. And we can keep getting better.”
While the Woodberry offense certainly got it together with Stone throwing for 228 yards on 20 of 34 passing and three TDs, Wilson running for 83 yards on 13 carries and Roderick hauling in seven catches for 102 yards, the Tigers defense was just as good. In addition to giving up no points in the final 21 minutes and change to finish up the game, they came up with four stops on fourth down and hauled in a pair of interceptions.
Woodberry (1-0) travels to Pinecrest (NC) on Friday.
