Handley rallies past James Wood in OT to clinch Region 4C playoff spot

WINCHESTER — James Wood had Handley down for the count in Saturday’s Class 4 Northwestern District football clash.

Elijah Richards’ 38-yard touchdown scamper had put the Colonels up 30-20 with 3:47 left.

But somehow the Judges got off the canvas and managed to get even in regulation, then delivered their final knockout blow on Aaron Lee’s interception in overtime to secure a 37-30 triumph over their longtime rivals at James R. Wilkins Jr. Stadium.

Emerson Fusco’s four-yard TD run in overtime provided the difference as Handley (7-3, 3-3) clinched the district’s final Region 4C playoff spot. The fourth-seeded Judges will travel to Dulles District champion Loudoun County (10-0) on Friday for a 7 p.m. game.

“I don’t know that answer,” Handley coach Dan Jones said when asked how his team pulled out the win. “I just know our kids didn’t quit. It just shows them now going into the first round of the playoffs that anything can happen on a given day.

“We were down. They had us on the ropes and we fought back.”

“We never gave up,” said Lee, who also caught a fourth-quarter touchdown pass. “We kept our heads up and kept going. I think we played perfect in the second half.”

James Wood coach Ryan Morgan felt like his team let the Judges off the hook. “For most of the game I thought we were the better football team,” he said. “We have to close it out. We can’t make silly turnovers and we can’t miss as many tackles as we did down the stretch.”

James Wood had Handley on the ropes for most of the contest, but the Judges sparked by Manno Lusca’s 78-yard fumble return that cut their deficit to 16-13, rallied from a 16-0 deficit to grab a 20-16 lead on Fusco’s one-yard TD run on fourth down with 8:29 left in regulation.

“These local games, we play so tight,” Jones said of his team’s rough start. “We make mistakes because we are trying so hard. ... Finally we relaxed.”

But, the Colonels didn’t allow that lead to stick. Quarterback Jared Neal completed 4 of 4 passes for 51 yards in a 75-yard drive that was capped by Richards’ four-yard TD run with 6:15 remaining. After James Wood stopped Handley on fourth down, Richards’ 38-yard burst had the Colonels sitting pretty.

“Our kids came right back,” Morgan said. “I wasn’t sure how they would respond. I thought that we had the capability to run the ball on them and the capability to keep driving the ball.”

With his team facing the 10-point deficit, Davion Butler moved the Judges down the field in a hurry with a 40-yard pass to Christian Metzger and a 20-yarder to Breylon Miller. On fourth down at the James Wood 5, Butler scrambled out the pocket and found Lee for a TD with 2:19 remaining that made it 30-27.

After the Colonels recovered an onside kick, Richards ran for 11 yards on first down, but a bad snap on third down helped Handley get a hold. Hunter Barnhart’s 50-yard punt into the end zone gave Handley the ball at the 20 with 1:45 left.

“I felt like we could do that the whole game,” Jones said of the Judges’ late offensive play. “Davion made plays with his feet. He got out of the pocket and found open receivers and our kids made big plays. Our offensive line gave him time to throw the ball.”

“I feel like everybody believed in me,” said Butler of his second-half performance. “At first, I was trying to do to much and force things. In the second half, I really started playing my game and settled down.”

Butler and Miller combined on a 36-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage and the senior quarterback found Lee for 20 yards to the Wood 24. The Judges drove as close as the Colonels’ 5, but Richards swatted away a third-down pass with 24.7 seconds left. With the Judges’ season on the line, Bryce Pollak squeaked a 25-yard field goal inside the left upright to tie the score at 30-30.

The Judges got the ball first in overtime. After carries from Fusco (2 yards) and Butler (4), Fusco was able to power over the left side to just get over the goal line. Pollak’s extra point made it 37-30.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I wasn’t really sure when we lined up what I really wanted to do,” Jones said of the overtime TD. “We ran a new formation. ... Emerson hit the hole hard and we got lucky.”

James Wood struggled in its overtime possession. Richards gained a yard on first down, but the Colonels picked up a delay of game penalty before the next play. Andrew Link grabbed Neal’s deflected pass at the 8 to set up the final play. Once again, the Judges got a hand on Neal’s throw and Lee was there to grab the fluttering ball and fall to the ground to end it.

“I don’t even know what to say. I’m so shocked,” Lee said of the game’s final play. “Someone tipped it and I just saw it in the air, grabbed it and went down.”

Lee, a 5-foot-5, 130-pound senior, was swarmed over by teammates after the play.

“Aaron is a kid you love to have on the team,” Jones said. “His stature is not really big, but boy he plays big.”

Morgan was disappointed with the penalty in overtime. “We didn’t have a great gain on first down, but the delay of game I don’t know why that happened,” he said. “It can’t happen. That was a critical error on our part.”

James Wood’s defense forced three turnovers and blanked the Judges in the first half. Casey Floyd grabbed a deflected pass at the back of the end zone for an 18-yard TD pass from Neal on fourth down and Barnhart’s 29-yard field goal gave the Colonels a 9-0 lead at the halftime break.

Taking the second half kickoff, James Wood marched 80 yards in nine plays, eight of them on the ground. Lane Overbaugh’s 38-yard run to the Handley 1 set up Richards’ TD to make it 16-0.

Hassan Akanbi’s kickoff return to the James Wood 26 set up Handley’s first score, an 11-yard scramble by Butler that made it 16-6 after the Judges failed on a conversion run.

Butler finished 19 of 35 for 274 yards with one interception and rushed 11 yards for Handley’s first TD. Fusco had 112 yards on 21 carries, while Breylon Miller had six catches for 103 yards.

Richards turned in a stellar effort with 188 yards on 23 carries. His 52-yard, tackle-breaking run set up Barnhart’s first-half field goal. Neal completed 11 of 16 passes for 124 yards. Zach Smith led the defense with an interception and a fumble recovery.

Richards’ numbers were a career-best.

“Elijah had a fantastic game,” Morgan said. “He’s not very big. He’s about 150 pounds and that was at the beginning of the year. He’s a tough kid. He’s a track guy and he doesn’t look it but he’s super strong. He was able to bounce off some tackles and he made some really nice cuts.”

James Wood loses 22 seniors from a squad that finished 2-8 overall, 1-5 in the district.

“We didn’t play up to our potential,” Morgan said of the season. “I think this is probably the most complete game we played, but we waiting until Week [11] to play it. If we had played this way several other times we wouldn’t have been been 2-8. ... We would have been closer to 4-6 or 5-5. We left a lot of plays on the field, unfortunately.”

Handley now makes its fourth consecutive playoff appearance. The Judges have gone out in the first round in the previous three.

“These seniors, they earned it,” Jones said of the playoff berth. “They did everything they needed to do to get there. Now we just have to do the next thing and win a playoff game.”

Butler said Saturday’s comeback could help.

“It means a lot, especially going into the playoffs,” Butler said of the comeback. “It’s very big and we have a lot of momentum.”

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