Room for improvement

With a win in hand, Colonels aim higher against Musselman

September 10, 2010

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star       

WINCHESTER- Last week's season-opening 13-7 win over Washington (W.Va.) was a far cry from the type of explosive scoring that the James Wood High School football team was capable of in 2009, when the Colonels scored at least 27 points in each of their seven non-district games.

Wood coach Mike Bolin isn't overly concerned about last Friday's point total, though. As he indicated by holding his two fingers in the air centimeters apart at the end an interview Wednesday in his office, he doesn't think the Colonels are too far away from making scoreboard operators busy again.

"We were just a little out of sync last week," Bolin said. "The kids didn't think we played well, but you look at the numbers and you look at the stats ... we played really well. We just didn't score.

"In any game, I feel confident that if we have the ball for 32 of 48 minutes and we get 200 yards on the ground, we're probably going to win."

James Wood, which rushed for 221 yards and held the ball for 31:54 against Washington, will certainly take those numbers when hosting Musselman (W.Va.) tonight at 7.

The Applemen come into Kelican Stadium with an 0-2 mark and surrendered 217 yards on the ground in a 21-7 loss to Sherando last week.

But Bolin doesn't expect a Musselman team that held Loudoun County to 49 rushing yards on 25 carries the week prior to give up yards - or points - easily. "Musselman's got a heck of a team this year," said Bolin, whose squad earned a 35-14 win over the Applemen in 2009. "I think they're a heck of a lot better than they were last year."

With eight players seeing their first significant time on offense, James Wood's players thought one of their biggest problems against Washington was composure.

"We had a lot of nerves," senior running back and linebacker Joel McGreevy said. "A lot of people had to step up into positions while playing their first varsity games and making their first varsity starts. I definitely think we're going to come out better than we did last week."

The Colonels scored a touchdown on their opening drive, but they didn't put up points again until the fourth quarter, when they stalled twice in the red zone and had to settle for a pair of 26-yard Peyton Hottel field goals.

Two other drives inside the 15 failed to yield points.

Bolin said sustaining blocks and having better positioning would have given James Wood a better chance of cashing in on its opportunities.

"There were a couple times our running back was too deep in the I," Bolin said. "That's going to mess everything up. That seam, that hole you open up, doesn't last long. You've got to time it up.

"With Brock [Lockhart] last year, he'd hit it at the exact time. We're learning still, but we look a lot better this week. The last couple of days have been pretty sharp. Hopefully it translates to Friday night.

"We've got certain places we think we can attack, and we're going to come after them. We're going to run the ball. Our philosophy is we want to pound the ball as much as we can."

The Colonels had four players run the ball at least 11 times against Washington.

Fullback Cory Schrock led the way with 14 carries for 79 yards and a touchdown. McGreevy (13 carries for 48 yards), Mark Collie (12 for 39) and quarterback Matt Copley (11 for 31) also chipped in, and Chris Skinner added 24 yards on four carries.

"I've always known Musselman to be really physical, and that's what I like about them," Copley said. "I go in there with confidence knowing that our running backs are a lot more deep this year.

"And after all this conditioning, we'll be a lot more physical going into the fourth quarter, and I think that will help us going into the Musselman game."

On the other side of the ball, the Colonels will face a Musselman offense that's going through something similar to what James Wood's offense went through last week.

The Applemen - who are putting more emphasis on the wing-T than they have in recent years - scored just 13 points despite rushing for 201 yards against Loudoun County and didn't score until the final three minutes against Sherando.

Musselman is led on offense by quarterbacks Aron Shiley and Korey Jackson. Running back Malik Hunter picked up just 29 yards last week, but he had 113 on nine carries against Loudoun County.

If the Colonels play like they did against Washington - when they limited the Patriots to just 55 yards on 22 carries - they should be successful.

"We definitely did well stopping those run plays up the middle," McGreevy said. "Everybody's coming together and doing their job, and we just need to make sure we hold that buck sweep and that trap this week.

"Their running backs run hard and low, so we have to make sure we tackle and wrap up, and hold on. If [the backs] get past their linebackers, our deep third needs to hold and wait for everybody else to get there. We have to gang tackle this week."