Colonels Crush Rams 40-20 For Second Win In A Row

Posted: September 20, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

STRASBURG — There were plenty of numbers for the James Wood football team to get excited about Friday night.

There were the 227 rushing yards the Colonels piled up, the 496 yards of total offense they compiled and the zero points they allowed Strasburg in the first half.

But the only number that mattered for James Wood was one it had been chasing since 2011 — two.

With Friday’s 40-20 thumping of the Rams, the Colonels didn’t just capture their second win of the year, but also clinched their first two-game winning streak and multi-win season in three years.

“This is the best feeling in the world for us, we really needed it,” said junior running back Tyler Bishop. “The past couple years have been tough, but this shows that we’re a different team and we’re going to build on this and go into next week and hopefully win another game.”

Back-to-back 1-9 seasons that ended without a playoff berth had dogged James Wood (2-2) in recent years, and consecutive losses to open this season seemed to signal more of the same.

But the Colonels got a big 36-0 shutout win over Warren County in their home opener last week, and Friday night they showed that it wasn’t a fluke.

Taking the opening kickoff, James Wood drove 60 yards in 12 plays and senior quarterback Brady Hepner (11 of 13 for 243 yards and three touchdowns) found Bishop on a rollout for an 11-yard score. A two-point conversion run by senior Landon Rutherford quickly followed and the Colonels were in business with an 8-0 lead.

“That was a big confidence boost [to score on the opening drive] not just for me and our receivers, but also for the whole line and the whole team,” Hepner said. “In the past we’d get down early and it was like, ‘Oh, just back to the old James Wood routine of getting down and having to fight back.’

“But these past couple games we’ve made the big plays and we’ve struck first, and that’s just got our confidence sky high.”

The momentum stayed in the Colonels’ favor when a fake punt by Strasburg (1-2) came up a yard short on its first possession of the game and Hepner wasted no time taking advantage.

Working out of the shotgun, Hepner faked a handoff on a read-option play, shot through a huge hole in the middle of the line and then bounced it out to the left, streaking down the James Wood sideline untouched for a 46-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 lead.

And from there the rout was on.

A Strasburg punt pinned James Wood on its own 2-yard line early in the second quarter, but a 37-yard bomb down the sideline from Hepner to senior wide receiver Nick Manuel (four catches for 101 yards and a touchdown) gave the Colonels some breathing room and four plays later Hepner hit Bishop (five catches for 121 yards, seven carries for 49 yards and two touchdowns) up the seam for a 45-yard score on third down.

“We had an underneath throw on that play, but if that seam opens up you go for it, and it was wide open and Brady made a great throw,” said James Wood coach Mark McHale. “He’s not the same guy [who threw seven interceptions] in the first two games, and we’re not the same team.”

An interception by Manuel — his fourth of the season — gave the ball right back to the Colonels and they marched 81 yards in eight plays as Rutherford rumbled in from 10 yards out to James Wood into the locker room at halftime up 28-0.

“We knew Strasburg was good, but we just did what we needed to do to win the game,” Bishop said. “We worked on [the read-option offense] all week and the line blocked really well, and us backs ran really well and Brady came up big for us again.”

Strasburg, which was limited to just 13 rushing yards in the first half and 78 in the game, managed to get on the scoreboard in the second half as quarterback Mark Smoot threw a pair of touchdown passes to running back Justin Carr and wide receiver brother Ryan Smoot, but the Rams’ defense had no answer for James Wood.

Hepner — who also picked off Smoot in the fourth quarter and rushed for a game-high 92 yards on eight carries — hit Manuel in stride on a short slant for a 53-yard catch-and-run score on the first drive of the third quarter and the senior quarterback made it 6-for-6 on scoring possessions with a six-yard quarterback keeper early in the fourth quarter.

For the game James Wood outgained Strasburg 496-309 and was only stopped on offense after McHale pulled his starters in the fourth quarter.

Hepner said it was the kind of game where everything was clicking for the Colonels, and one he and his teammates won’t soon forget.

“This is huge for our team and our school,” Hepner said. “The past couple years have been about the 1-9 seasons and our student body really didn’t have much faith in us. But now that we’ve got our second win, when we haven’t had two wins in three years, I think it’s going get everyone really fired up and give us a push going forward.”

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