Lord Botetourt scored two touchdowns in the first minute and a half of the game as the Cavaliers beat William Byrd last Friday in a Blue Ridge District football game. LB won 41-7 at Robert A. Patterson Stadium in Vinton.
The Cavaliers took the lead 15 seconds into the game when Isiah Stephens took the opening kickoff to the house. Stephens fielded the ball at his own seven, found some room up the middle and cut to his right where he found wide open spaces, racing 93 yards for the score.
It didn’t take much longer for the Cavaliers to extend their lead. They held Byrd to a three-and-out on the next series and the Byrd center snapped the ball over punter Logan Baker’s head. Payton Haston tackled Baker inside the five and James-Ryan Salvi found Kyle Arnholt open in the right flat for an easy touchdown pass with just a minute and 16 seconds gone in the game.
“Getting that early 14-point lead was huge,” said LB coach Jamie Harless. “When a team gets behind that early they tend to press and make more mistakes.”
And that was the case, as Byrd played anything but a clean game from that point. The Terriers lost a fumble and threw an interception while Botetourt had no turnovers in the game. Byrd had seven penalties for 92 yards and LB had just one penalty, for five yards, for the entire game. At one point in the third quarter two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties moved the ball 30 yards inside the 10 to set up a seven-yard TD run by Dylan Wade, who also scored on a nine-yard run in the fourth quarter.
Botetourt led 28-7 at the half. After the two early scores the Cavs made it 21-0 when Salvi found Dalton Breese behind the Byrd secondary for a 73-yard score. The Terriers answered with their only touchdown early in the second quarter, but Botetourt came right back with a 45-yard TD hookup from Salvi to Arnholt, who slipped out of a final tackle before sprinting the final 35 yards untouched.
“I thought when we got up 21-0 our kids started to relax,” said Harless. “Byrd never quit. The score could have been a whole lot worse but their kids played hard until the end.”
The Terriers finished with 200 rushing yards to LB’s 110 but the Cavaliers had a big edge in passing, 148-87. Both teams had 13 first downs but LB was tough on defense in the red zone, thwarting a couple Byrd scoring opportunities.
Salvi finished nine for 13 passing with five completions to Arnholt for 56 yards. Gunner Givens had two catches for 18 yards and Breese caught the bomb for the 73-yard backbreaking TD.
Now 6-0, LB continues to top the Region 3D rankings with a home game against Staunton River this week.