Colonels meet Meridian for first time in 54 years

The last time Meridian — formerly George Mason — and James Wood met in football, Walter Barr was guiding the Colonels on the sidelines.

Barr led James Wood to wins in each of his games against the Mustangs from 1967-69, and now the Colonels will look to continue their historical six-game winning streak against Meridian at 7 p.m. on Friday night at Walter Barr Field at Jerry Kelican Stadium. The game against the 2-2 Mustangs is the Homecoming contest for the Colonels (2-3).

Meridian is coming off a 34-13 loss to Brentsville, a team James Wood lost to 41-7 on Sept. 1. The Colonels are looking to bounce back from last week’s 42-28 defeat to Handley in which they gave up 485 yards.

“The biggest thing is just improving in tackling,” James Wood coach Todd Wilson said. “We had guys in spots [against Handley], but we just didn’t make the plays.”

The Colonels hope to improve that against Meridian’s double-wing offense. The Mustangs are led by quarterback Cruz Ruof and running backs Omar Dabbourah and Alden Harrison. James Wood’s defense features linebacker Zach Smith (60 tackles, two interceptions), linebacker Vincent Salvati (34 tackles) and defensive back Justin Gwinner (six interceptions).

“We’ve got to execute and be physical,” Wilson said. “It’s going to be an old-school kind of game. We need good penetration and good effort up front.”

Offensively, James Wood is led by Owen Neal (51 of 114 for 854 yards, four touchdowns and six interceptions, including 13 of 23 for 261 yards, one TD and interception last week), Gwinner (18 catches, 335 yards, two TDs) and running backs Elijah Richards (119 carries, 565 yards, two TDs) and Dominik Ramirez, who had 57 yards and three TDs last week and has five rushing TDs for the season.

Wilson said the Mustangs showed a 3-3 stack, 40 front and 3-4 defense last week against Brentsville.

“They might come out the same away against us because we do have some similar formations [to Brentsville], but we don’t know exactly what they’re going to do,” Wilson said. “We need to block up front. One week it seems like we’ve gotten better blocking up front, the next week it seems like we take a step backwards or don’t progress as much. The main focus is getting better up front.”

If it does, James Wood could pile up the yards like it did last week, when it had 410 against Handley.

“Protection was pretty good last week for [Neal],” Wilson said. “When he has time to make his progression and his reads, he’s a pretty good passer. If we can give him time to throw the ball, I think we’ll be good there.

“Elijah Richards has been running the ball hard all year long. Sometimes he’s got good space and good holes to run though, and other times he’s getting hit at the line of scrimmage and he’s just powering though and making something out of nothing. If our offensive line can give him just a little crease, we feel confident in him being able to run the ball.”

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