Lord Botetourt is the second seed in the eight-team Region 3D football tournament, which opens at the sites of the first through fourth seeds this week. The Cavaliers will host seventh seeded Cave Spring at 7 p.m. Friday in Daleville.
Cave Spring, a River Ridge District team, comes into the post-season with a 4-6 record but having won their last two. They beat winless Hidden Valley on Oct. 24, 36-0, and 2-8 Christiansburg on Halloween, 28-7. The Knights had a bye last week.
“They’re a flex base team and they’re athletic and scrappy,” said LB coach Jamie Harless of the Knights.
LB and Cave Spring have three common opponents. They both beat Christiansburg and lost to William Byrd. Cave Spring lost to Northside, 27-0, in the second week of the season while the Cavaliers beat the Vikings at home last week to wrap up the regular season, 28-21.
Last Friday’s game at LB was a tale of two games. The Cavaliers led 21-0 in the first half as the Vikings couldn’t get out of their own way. Botetourt held Northside on the opening series and a bad snap from punt formation set up LB’s first score, a one yard run by Angel Rigney.
Northside continued to make key mistakes with a backwards pass for a big loss. Botetourt made it 14-0 on a two-yard run by Rigney to finish off an 83-yard, nine-minute drive and on the ensuing kickoff the Vikings failed to field a high kick and the Cavaliers recovered the ball on the Viking 26. Rigney scored his third touchdown of the half with 5:29 remaining and it was 21-0 at intermission.
Botetourt made it 28-0 midway through the third quarter on a 42-yard run around right end by Quinten Jones. It appeared the rout was on, but the Vikings managed to make it interesting. Northside answered with a 12-yard TD pass from Casey Hall to Kamden Tucker to cut the lead to 28-7 after three quarters, then Hall ran for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and LB had to recover an onsides kick to seal the win.
“I felt like the Salvation Army in the second half, it was a charity event,” said Harless. “We got the charity in the first half and gave it back to them in the second half.”
Photos by Brian Hoffman
Botetourt’s Rigney and Jones both rushed for over 100 yards, as has usually been the case this season. Angel had 105 yards on 29 attempts and Quentin had 182 yards on 27 carries. Rigney was two for seven passing with Jones making both receptions for a total of 13 yards.
With the win the Cavaliers improved to 7-3, marking their 13th consecutive season of winning at least seven games. If they win this week it will be their ninth year in a row of winning at least one playoff game.
Other Region 3D playoff games this week include top seeded Magna Vista hosting eighth seed Abingdon, third seeded William Byrd hosting sixth seeded Bassett, and the four-five game with Northside at Carroll County. If Botetourt and Byrd both win this week they would have a rematch of their 42-41 thriller, won by Byrd in Vinton on Oct. 24. The rematch would be in Daleville.
