Coming off its first loss of the year in a tight battle with Liberty Christian in Lynchburg, Woodberry Forest’s home debut put the Tigers in a good position. The Tigers made their share of mistakes, dealt with a key injury, and overcame it all to the tune of a 36-0 win over Paul VI. There’s still room for improvement for this vaunted program, and yet there was no arguing with how good this defense is playing three weeks into the season.
“From a coaches perspective it feels great because we can learn from this when we go back and look at the film but the team still feels great,” said Woodberry coach Clint Alexander. “Paul VI is a really good team and I know they’re having a rough go of it right now, but they’re so tough to prepare for, so physical. They all come down hill and hit you on offense. It’s never easy when we play them, it’s always a fight. So I was pretty happy that we were able to fix some things and watching the defense, it was like we didn’t even flinch after all the turnovers. I was waiting for someone to hang their head and nobody did.”
The defense set the tone right out of the gate as Nathaniel Tyrell came up with a pick-six on the Panthers first possession to make it 7-0 for the Tigers in the first minute of play.
“Before they lined up (the receiver lined up against me) looked at me and so I knew something was up, that he was going to run an out route,” Tyrell said. “So I was there, I was ready to take the interception. It meant everything, the first interception and for it to be a pick-six it was just awesome.”
But after that, turnovers were the story as the Tigers never punted in the first half but interceptions, fumbles and a turnover on downs in the redzone kept them from taking a two possession lead until Paul VI coughed up the ball in the waining minutes of the second quarter. Woodberry took the gift, and with starting quarterback Hunter Etheridge out of the game, sent Christian Zaytoun under center. The backup delivered a 17-yard touchdown pass to Zach Roderick with 29 seconds to go, and then on an extra point fake, Trent Ragland came up with a reception on the 2-point conversion to make it 15-0 heading into the break.
In the second half, the Tigers defense kept the Panthers at bay while the ground game got rolling for Woodberry. HT Minor scored the first of his two touchdowns to start the third quarter on a 55-yard run. Then with 7:45 to go in the fourth, Minor punched in a 10-yard rushing touchdown to make it 30-0. Less than two minutes later, James Hewell got in on the action with a 36-yard scoring run to finish up the scoring.
With the second string defense in for Woodberry, Paul VI’s best scoring chance came in the last minutes of play where they drove down to the Tigers goalline, the replacements forced a fumble and recovered to end the threat to preserve the shutout, much to the starters’ delight.
“Against that kind of offense you’ve just got to get penetration, and disrupt the back field,” said Woodberry senior Greer Martini. “At the last drive I was a little bit nervous (about losing the shutout), we really didn’t want to see them score. But the defense came up with the turnover. Whenever there was a struggle on offense the defense came back hard today. I was a second stringer once too when I was a freshman. I know how that feels. I wasn’t nervous about them, we knew they could do it.”
On the day, Minor finished with 138 yards on 18 carries and two scores. Hewell added 72 yards and his strike. Christian The Tigers finished with 255 yards on 38 carries. Asher led all receivers with three catches for 56 yards.
Woodberry (2-1) heads to Flint Hill on Saturday at 2 p.m.
