Sherando blanks Colonels to stay undefeated

STEPHENS CITY — The Sherando High School football team already had plenty of motivation ahead of its rivalry game against James Wood. But, in the Warriors’ minds, the Colonels threw some extra fuel on the fire before kickoff.

Before the Frederick County rivalry game commenced, the Warriors thought James Wood walked through their warmup drill. That pre-game affair galvanized Sherando’s intent to win, as the Warriors went on to shut out the Colonels 35-0 at Arrowhead Stadium on Friday night.

Quarterback Micah Carlson led the way on offense for the Warriors (7-0, 2-0 Class 4 Northwestern District), rushing for two TDs and throwing for two more. The senior signal-caller finished with a game-high 113 rushing yards, all of which came in the first half on eight carries.

“It was a personal game from the start,” Carlson said. “They walked through our warm-up drills. They think they can walk right through us, and we walked right through them. That's pretty much it... Every step we took was forward.”

Sherando defensive end Kaleb Nowlin echoed Carlson’s sentiments about the Colonels (4-3, 0-2).

“I mean no disrespect, but they ran through our drill, and that really got us fired up,” Nowlin said. “Because, in my opinion, that's disrespectful. Coach Rohrbaugh said in the locker room he really wants this one tonight, and we told him, ‘We're gonna get it for you.’ And so that's what we did.”

After a scoreless first quarter, Carlson kicked off the scoring with a 2-yard quarterback keeper up the gut with 9:44 left in the second quarter to cap off a 91-yard drive during which Carlson had 58 rushing yards.

After the Colonels took over on offense, Nowlin made history.

On a first-and-10 play on the Colonels’ own 37-yard line, Nowlin took down James Wood quarterback Owen Neal for a loss of 5 yards. That tackle for loss pushed Nowlin above 29.5 career sacks as he became the all-time sack leader at Sherando. Head coach T.J. Rohrbaugh said he thought the previous leader was John Edwards, who graduated from Sherando in 1998. Nowlin had two sacks on the night to reach 31 in his four years as a Warrior.

“I’ve started four years. I've been working for it,” Nowlin said of the record. “[Against] Warren County [last week], I didn't get to get it, but I put my mindset to breaking it at home. It comes from God. I always praise God. It also comes from my team. Everybody was praising me this week to go get it, and I said, ‘I got you.’ It doesn't happen unless my team is there for me.”

Nowlin’s sack helped Sherando’s defense force a punt three plays later, setting up the Sherando offense on its own 36-yard line.

Propelled by a handful of positive runs and an unnecessary roughness penalty on James Wood, it looked like Sherando was going to tack on a 30-yard field goal with 49 seconds left in the first half. That was until James Wood got called for a roughing the holder penalty on the field goal attempt, giving the Warriors a first down in the red zone. With 30 seconds left in the second quarter, Carlson found running back James Walters for a 14-yard score to give Sherando a 14-0 lead.

It only took another 14 seconds for Sherando to find the end zone again, as the Warriors recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff. One play later, Carlson dropped back to pass, pump faked, ran past a defender and sprinted down the field near the left sideline to score a 32-yard rushing touchdown. In celebration, Carlson high stepped all the way to the perimeter fence around the track before being met by teammates.

“As soon as that fumble came out, I went up to our offensive huddle and was like, ‘This ends now,'" Carlson said. "And we scored literally the first play on that drive, and then we went into halftime. That's, that's who we are. We do what we need to do.”

It was that kind of a night for Sherando, as the Warriors outgained James Wood 396-133 and held the Colonels to 12 first downs.

“I'll say it time and time again, no one's gonna put up 21 points, and I'm gonna stand on my statement,” Nowlin said.

Rohrbaugh said he and his team treat every game the same but added a rivalry game has the potential to stir up some more incentive to win.

“We treat every game the same,” Rorhbaugh said. “We treat every opponent the same. That's just kind of how we do things around here. We practice, we prepare the same regardless of the opponent. But anytime you go into a rivalry game, when you play a team here locally, and it gets a little bit chippy out there, it just adds fuel to the fire. And I thought our guys did a good job of responding.”

Sherando scored its fourth touchdown of the game with just under five minutes left in the third quarter when Carlson found a wide-open Ben Taylor across the middle for a 9-yard score, giving the Warriors a 28-0 lead.

Walters found the end zone again at the 9:59 mark in the fourth quarter on a 4-yard run up the middle. That score commenced a running clock, as the Warriors walked off the field with a win minutes later.

James Wood dealt with a number of injuries, head coach Todd Wilson said.

The Colonels were without their top two wide receivers in Xavier Price and Xander Manzo. Running back and defensive lineman Dominik Ramirez also suffered an injury early in the game.

“We battled some injuries, but the guys that that went in there and played in their place, I thought they did well,” Wilson said.

James Wood did return starting running back Kobe Mason, who finished with 6 yards on six carries. Mason missed last week's game against Meridian. Quarterback Owen Neal was 13-for-26 passing for 111 yards. Neal had a team-high 7 rushing yards — 22 of his yards were wiped out on a snap over his head that he had to sprint back to recover.

“Our kids played really hard tonight,” Wilson said. “We thought we had a good game plan. Things didn't go our way in the first half. That wasn't necessarily because of how hard our kids played, or how they executed the game.”

With the victory, the Warriors are 7-0 for the first time since 2015, when they finished 9-2 and had a regional quarterfinal appearance.

“This makes us one step closer to the Apple Cup between our four schools,” Carlson said.

The Barr-Lindon Crimson Apple, known as "the Apple Cup" is awarded by The Winchester Star to the team that fares best between the four Winchester-Frederick County schools. James Wood is 0-2 in Crimson Apple games and is eliminated from trophy contention. Sherando and Handley are 1-0 and Millbrook is 0-0.

Sherando will host undefeated Kettle Run next week. James Wood will welcome Fauquier at home.

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