For the second week in a row, Riverheads posted a three-touchdown win over a long-time county rival, but also for the second week, the game was closer than the score indicates and the opponent left the field knowing they had done all they could do to knock off the Big Red. Each team threw a curve at the other one tonight, or so it seemed, but in the final analysis the Riverheads curve worked better than the Wilson one.
The RHS curve in question was an apparently deliberate decision to minimize the impact of all-state running back Cayden Cook-Cash, who only scored once in the game and that was late in the fourth quarter when the game was pretty much decided. Instead the Gladiators threw a heavy dose of Luke Bryant at the Hornets, daring them to stop the strong senior running back and they were completely unable to do so as he scored four touchdowns to pace the victory.
As for Wilson's unexpected contribution, their fans may not have been surprised, but the Gladiators certainly were by the Hornets' stronger-than-advertised passing attack, which was the major factor that kept them in the game. According to the radio recap, quarterback Aiden Podgorski was 22-33 for 239 yards, including two impressive TD strikes to his senior classmate Blake Rodgers.
RHS fans, or at least most of us, were instead expecting a three-prong rushing attack from the Hornets but based on the times we heard their names called, only Ryan Mundie seemed to have his regular workhorse type game. The emphasis on the passing game pretty much became necessary after Bryant went wild in the second quarter and scored three times to pace the Gladiators to a 27-7 halftime lead. Each team then scored once in each of the final quarters.
Bennett Dunlap, who ran the ball from his QB spot more tonight than usual, put RHS on the board first with a 12 yard run just a 1:16 into the contest. His score was set up by a broken play from Bryant in which he appeared at first to bobble the handoff but instead took it down the Wilson sideline for about a 30 yard gain to immediately put RHS into the red zone. Dunlap then scored a play or two later.
Wilson answered on its initial possession to tie the score at 7-7 at the end of the first period. However, the Hornets stopped Riverheads on its second possession and had a chance to take the lead but could not produce the go-ahead score that would have no doubt unnerved the large Homecoming crowd.
Following that missed Wilson opportunity, the rest of the first half was practically dominated by Bryant. He had two long runs in which he utilized his blockers beautifully to gain maximum yardage and on one of them simply sidestepped a would-be tackler. By the time he completed his one-man show, the Gladiators were up 27-7 with just a couple minutes left, but there was still some first half drama left.
Although Wilson was out of time outs they executed a very nice two-minute drill and moved the ball down as close as the 7 yard line as the clock inched closer to halftime. On the final play of the half, the Gladiator defense broke through and sacked Podgorski for a loss.
However a flag had been thrown on the play, which both confused and infuriated the fans on the home side. For a moment, it appeared that the sack was going to be for naught and that Wilson would get an untimed down with another chance to score. Then for another moment, it appeared that both teams had been flagged. Instead the final ruling, which we did not learn about until the second half kickoff, was that Riverheads was called for a dead ball unsportsmanlike conduct, which was assessed to start the second half.
That allowed Wilson to start the half with a short field, and they scored on the first of Rodgers' two highlight-reel catches. That made the score 27-14 and made fans on both sides go "hmmm if they had also scored to end the first half, it would be 27-21 now."
Instead, Bryant scored a fourth time in the third quarter to counter the Rodgers TD, and then after Wilson trimmed it one last time to 34-21 on Rodgers' second TD catch, Triple C finally broke loose for about a 40 yard romp to close out the scoring. Before either team scored its fourth quarter TD, each one coughed up the football for what I believe were the only two turnovers of the game.
Riverheads will hit the road the next two Fridays, to Fort Defiance and then Staunton. Those two will certainly be interesting, especially after the Indians had unbeaten Staunton on the ropes tonight before The Storm somehow pulled out a 14-12 win in the final minute. Wilson, which only suffered its first district loss tonight, will now travel to Stuarts Draft to face the Cougars who are also only a one-loss-in-district play team after rallying past Buffalo Gap.
To summarize, RHS and Staunton are each unbeaten in district play, Wilson and Draft have one loss each and are still in contention for the title, whereas two-loss Buffalo Gap and Fort Defiance have to be considered out of the race but either or both can still play the role of spoiler somewhere along the line.
Last but not least, Waynesboro finally got in the win column, knocking off Rockbridge. I believe that final was something like 24-7 and I heard something about the Giants converting a string of onside kicks in that one.
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