James Wood Football Gets Doubled Up In 24-12 Loss To Heritage

Posted: August 30, 2014
By ALLEN BRIDGE
Special to The Winchester Star

LEESBURG — It’s that time of year again for high school stadiums to fill up on Friday nights and the James Wood Colonels traveled to take on the Heritage Pride in what was a physical, mistake-filled game.

Coaches always stress discipline to their players and the importance of avoiding costly penalties and taking care of the football — and that will surely be the message preached by James Wood second-year coach Mark McHale this coming week after the Colonels threw four interceptions and committed multiple penalties in a 24-12 loss to start the season.

“I didn’t think we played very good. We can’t throw four interceptions and keep giving the ball back to them. We’ll have to run the ball more to avoid these turnovers,” McHale said.

The Colonels struggled to gain any momentum on offense in the first half as they combined for only 4 rushing yards as a team at the break.

“We could have got a better push off the line. We couldn’t get a good push against their defensive front and struggled to run the ball as a result,” said running back Tyler Bishop.

This wasn’t the case for Heritage though, as its running game dominated the time of possession throughout the night. Running back Mitch Westbrook (25 carries for 116 yards and one touchdown) carried the ball six times on the first possession and capped off the drive with an 8-yard touchdown run to give Heritage an early 7-0 lead in the first quarter

“We knew coming into the game we were going to revolve around our running backs Mitch and Daniel Adigun,” said Heritage coach Reed Prosser. “They are our guys. They are great running backs and always run hard. We wanted them to have 35-40 carries as a team and we were able to do that today.”

The Colonels would respond in the second quarter as running back Landon Rutherfor took a screen pass from Brady Hepner (4 for 9 for 81 yards) and went 47 yards, cutting back across the field to take it to the house. James Wood, however, failed on the two-point conversion attempt, making the score 7-6.

Momentum appeared to be on James Wood’s side as its defense force a turnover-on-downs on the next possession, giving it a golden opportunity in Heritage territory late in the half. The Colonels could not capitalize, though, as Hepner threw his second interception of the game on the very next play, leading to a Heritage field goal and a 10-6 deficit at halftime

“We need to run the ball more than we did. When we ran we scored and gained yardage late in the game,” McHale said. “We need to cut down on our turnovers and focus on running the ball more.”

Heritage picked up where it left off in the first half, scoring on another run as Adigun (21 carries for 110 yards and two touchdowns) carried the ball four straight times before breaking open a 16-yard run to go along with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on James Wood to set up the Pride in the red zone. Adigun would go on to score from 1-yard out to increase the lead to 17-6.

“The team played hard tonight. I loved how my line and how physical they were in setting the tempo up front,” Adigun said. “It was a great overall effort by the team tonight.”

James Wood would go on to score in the fourth quarter and close the gap to 17-12 on a 21-yard run by Bishop (7 carries for 29 yards), but Heritage answered right back, marching back down the field and scoring another rushing touchdown by Adigun.

“I thought that when James Wood scored late in the game to close the gap, I thought our kids were resilient, and were able to put a drive together and eat a lot of clock so we can run down the field and score and create that final margin,” said Prosser.

James Wood had opportunities late in the game to try and sustain drives and score, but penalties and turnovers came at inopportune times for the Colonels.

“We have to go back and work on the fundamentals,” McHale said. “We took too many penalties at costly times and we gave them automatic first downs to keep them in the game. If we didn’t play as sloppy in a five-point game until the end, we would have had a chance to come out with a win.”

“Both teams exhibited a tremendous amount of fight and toughness,” Prosser said. “It was a bit of a sloppy game on both sides of the ball for both teams. Too many turnovers for both coaches liking, but overall our kids played hard.”