The Lord Botetourt football team lost the season opener for the first time in 11 seasons when the Cavaliers fell to E.C. Glass in Lynchburg last Friday. The host Hilltoppers took a 41-30 win at City Stadium in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
“Don’t let the score fool you, that was an ass whipping,” said LB coach Jamie Harless, who had never lost a season opener at LB. The last opening day loss for LB was 15-9 to James River in 2010.
“We were in an athletic mismatch,” Harless continued. “That was the fastest team we ever played against, they could absolutely fly. We didn’t see anything in the preseason that prepared us for that. I’d be real surprised if Glass doesn’t contend for the regional title.”
Botetourt trailed 21-0 after the first quarter and the Cavs were down 34-0 before Joey Isaacs returned a kickoff 95 yards for a score shortly before halftime. It was 41-7 in the third quarter, with much of the damage coming from the pass-catch combination of George White and Eli Wood. White threw six touchdown passes and Wood caught four of them. Wood had eight catches overall for almost 250 yards.
“He’s a stud,” said Harless. “There’s no way you can cover the kid, and their quarterback was very accurate.”
Meanwhile, LB was breaking in a new lineup after graduating most of the starters from last year’s team that was the state Class 3 runner-up.
“At one point we had 11 kids in there who weren’t starting at the beginning of last season,” said Harless. “That’s fairly unusual, but they’ll improve a ton. And our kids kept fighting, they never laid down. They kept their number ones in there for quite a while and our kids never stopped fighting.”
Botetourt put 23 points on the board late in the game to make the game look closer than it was. KJ Bratton threw a touchdown pass to Hayden Martin, Jakari Nicely ran for a score and Tucker Brookman returned a fumble 93 yards for a touchdown.
Bratton finished three for 11 passing for 41 yards and also led the rushing, gaining 155 yards on 13 carries Nicely had five carries for 47 yards. Nicely, Martin, Isaacs and Cade Lang had one reception each for a total of 43 yards, but their combined total paled when compared to Wood.
This week, the Cavaliers will be back on the road to take on Blacksburg. It will be played on Thursday night so as not to conflict with Virginia Tech’s opener in Blacksburg on Friday against North Carolina.
“They have a lot of young kids on the field like we do,” said Harless.
Blacksburg lost their season opener to Giles at Ragsdale Field in Pearisburg last Friday. Despite the loss they tripled their season scoring output from the spring with 21 points while giving up 28 to the Spartans. And showing how things can change, the Bruins were 13-1 just three years ago, including a 35-14 win over Glass in the playoffs.
