Lord Botetourt opened the football season with a tough loss against E.C. Glass and the Blacksburg Bruins paid for it last Friday. The Cavaliers took out their early season frustrations on the Bruins with a 70-0 pounding in Daleville to even their record at 1-1.
“We improved on some things and then some things went our way early in the game,” said LB coach Jamie Harless. “It was sort of like the perfect storm.”
The weathermen hit the Bruins early as Lord Botetourt stormed to a 42-0 lead in the first quarter. The long and short of it began with Jakari Nicely, who ran for a 50-yard TD on LB’s first drive, then scored on a one yard run to make it 14-0 before many of the fans had found their seats
Botetourt made it 20-0 on Blacksburg’s next series when Tuck Brookman recovered a fumble in the end zone. On the next Bruin possession Kendal Howard made a tackle in the end zone for a two-point safety and a 22-0 lead.
On the next LB drive Zion Woody ran in from the four for a 28-0 lead. Then, after LB held the Bruins again, they blocked the punt and Kendal Howard ran the loose pig in from 20 yards out. Botetourt then made it 42-0 on a 24-yard TD run by Cade Lang just before the period ended for Botetourt’s sixth touchdown of the first quarter.
LB increased the lead to 56-0 by the half. Andrew Gilbert had a six-yard TD run and Tristan Overbay went 68 yards for a score. The clock ran continuously in the second half as Woody scored his second TD on a two-yard run and Seth Williamson capped things off with an eight-yard score in the fourth quarter. Dean Webb was eight for 10 kicking extra points for LB.
While all those stats are impressive, the thing that impressed Harless the most was that his team had just one penalty.
“We didn’t have a single penalty on offense and just one on defense, and that was an aggressive penalty,” he said. “We improved a lot from the first week.”
It will take some more improving this Friday as the Cavaliers take on Riverheads in Staunton. The six-time defending Class 1 state champs beat LB in Daleville last year, 62-38. That was the most points scored against LB since Staunton River put up 75 on the Cavs in 2016 when they went to the state championship game. Ironically enough, Staunton River lost that state championship game to Blacksburg, of all teams, 28-20.
Riverheads runs a double wing offense and tries to run it down your throat, usually most effectively. The Cavaliers have been running a similar offense this year, so seeing it in practice every day can’t hurt.
“Familiarity is an advantage but they’ll still be hard to defend,” said Harless. “They execute at an amazingly high level, so even if you know what they’re doing it’s hard to stop.
“I think it’s fantastic that some little country school has won six state championships in a row, and in a very elite way. They play great football, football for men.”