Lord Botetourt will be trying to complete a second straight undefeated regular season when the Cavaliers play at Northside this week. The game is tentatively scheduled for Friday at 7 p.m. in Roanoke County.
“Tentatively” is the word because Vikings’ head coach Scott Fisher was hoping to play the game on Saturday afternoon after having played Monday night against William Byrd. That game was started on Saturday but called after one quarter due to inclement weather. It was resumed on Monday and Northside picked up the win, but Fisher asked the LB game be moved back a day to give his players an additional day to recover. However, LB coach Jamie Harless doesn’t want to play a football game the day before Easter Sunday and at press time the game was still scheduled for Friday night.
Lord Botetourt also ran into some bad weather on Saturday when the Cavaliers played host to Franklin County, but the game was so far out of hand by that point it was decided to end it with LB leading 57-7 early in the second half. The Cavaliers had a 50-7 lead at intermission and the second half was barely underway when Kyle Arnholt caught his second TD pass of the game, a 69-yard hookup from Sammy Peery. Thunder and lightning then delayed the game for close to an hour, and it was decided to call it a day at that point.
“It would have been fine with me one way or the other,” said Harless. “We would have liked to finish it but, with the score what it was, it was probably the right thing to do.”
The Cavaliers could have accumulated more statistics, but they already had plenty by that point. Senior tailback Hunter Rice had already run for 173 yards on 14 carries, five of which resulted in touchdowns. Hunter had four touchdown runs in the first quarter of one, 10, 14 and 14 yards, then tacked on a fifth with a 56-yard gallop with less than a minute to play before the half.
Peery tossed two touchdown passes in the second quarter, a 53-yard strike to Zach Horton, who was behind the Eagle defense, and a 54-yarder to Arnholt, who took a short pass and proceeded to put the Eagles behind him on a long and winding run. Mikey Rago kicked seven extra points and a bad snap on LB’s first TD led to a two-point conversion as holder Arnholt ran it in.
With the win the Cavaliers have now won 19 of their last 20 games, losing only to Hopewell in last year’s state championship. At 5-0 they’re currently ranked first in the Virginia High School League Region 3D ratings, followed by 4-0 Abingdon, 4-1 Carroll County and Northside in fourth. The top four make the playoffs, and LB could knock Northside out of the fourth spot this week depending on what a couple other teams do.
The playoffs are scheduled to begin the weekend of April 9, and LB has already clinched a home game.
“We’re playing extremely well right now,” said Harless. “The Franklin game was one of the better games we’ve played and the kids seem to be playing at a higher level every week. We’ve been very physical and football is a real simple game. Whoever is more physical and plays with better technique usually wins.”
