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Hogoheegee District Football
Oct 04, 2007The Hogoheegee District schedule gets into full swing tonight with three games being contested.
The most intriguing matchup has to be Rural Retreat’s game at Holston. The winner of this game will earn a large amount of Region C, Division 1 power points and could almost surely lock up a top seed.
Rural Retreat has not had a losing season since 1985 and the Indians have relied on the trio of Justin Stoneman, Wyatte Pickett and David Harrison this fall to rack up plenty of yards this fall. Harrison actually leads the Hogoheegee District in rushing and has been an inspiring story for head coach Quinton Hensley’s team. Harrison missed almost the entire 2006 season with a gruesome hand injury, but has come back in a big way.
Holston must rebound from last week’s 21-14 loss to Patrick Henry which ended in controversy.
Chilhowie will host Smyth County rival Northwood tonight. Northwood is just 1-3 and the Panthers have struggled with their pass defense and costly penalties. If Northwood is to qualify for the playoffs for the third straight season, the team must pull off some upsets.
Chilhowie features one of the area’s top dual threats in linebacker/running back Alex Russell.
Patrick Henry hosts George Wythe in the other district matchup. GW’s Larry McCoy is another one of the district’s top running backs and he’s put up impressive numbers thus far.
Through the midway point of the Hogoheegee District season, one thing is for sure. There are some quality running backs in the six-team district. Rural Retreat’s Stoneman, Pickett and Harrison are strong, while GW has the duo of McCoy and Seth White and Holston possesses the one-two punch of Aaron Reynolds and Eric Mefford.
Oh yeah, Chilhowie has Russell and Tyler Grinstead, while Patrick Henry’s Marcus Montgomery and Northwood’s StevenEarly Spence have also put up some big numbers.
Posted by Tim Hayes Mance tries motivational ploys, position changes
Oct 03, 2007
They did something new at Richlands a week and a half ago—practice football after a loss.
The Blue Tornadoes’ 18-13 defeat against Graham Sept. 21 was stunning, because the G-Men didn’t appear to match up that well with them on paper, yet inevitable because Richlands had played without much passion at times in the season’s first half.
So coach Greg Mance, after watching films and racking his brain to discern the problem, put his team through a test while they eyeballed the tape.
“I told them if they saw a play when they saw a teammate helping each other up or playing with emotion to raise their hand,” he said Tuesday night. “Out of [123] plays, they raised their hand four times.
“That told me they were going through the motions, playing without emotion. We challenged them to pick it up, have fun again.”
Mance also made some position changes, moving receiver Romulo Fajardo to running back and sending the season’s leading rusher, Kheven Schweingruber, to wide receiver.
In Friday night’s all-too-predictable 49-14 rout of winless Tazewell, Fajardo rushed for 93 yards, which doesn’t sound like a big deal until one realizes it’s the second-highest total for a Blues RB this season.
“Romulo’s 180 pounds and he’s been through the battles for three years now,” Mance said. “Kheven’s 140 pounds and he was getting beat up. We just wanted to find a way to get all our good athletes on the field at once.”
Fajardo perhaps becomes the team’s key player in the second half and the playoffs. If he can keep averaging 93 yards per game, it will force defenses to respect the run enough and permit improving QB Joel Elswick more opportunities to use athletes like Austin Fuller, Ben Addison, Matt Davis and Schweingruber in one-on-one matchups.
That’s how the offense was so powerful last year. Caleb Jennings’ presence at running back made defenses play seven men in the box, gIving the likes of Fuller and C.J. Arms one-on-ones which QB Justin McCracken exploited adroitly.
With a trip to Marion on the horizon for Friday night, Mance feels his team is back on the beam. What’s more, one gets a sense the loss may have lifted a huge burden off this team’s back.
“Sometimes, you can get complacent in what you’re doing,” Mance said. “Kids can take things for granted. Since the loss, they’ve practiced hard and they played extremely well at Tazewell.”
Locals in the Pros (NFL)
Sep 30, 2007The Dallas Cowboys improved to 4-0 on Sunday with a 35-7 victory over the St. Louis Rams. A pair of local players made it possible.
Running back Julius Jones of Big Stone Gap rushed 13 times for 52 yards and scored a touchdown.
Meanwhile, former Elizabethton High School star Jason Witten continued his stellar season. The tight end caught six passes for 71 yards and also reached the end zone.
Touchdown Friday Night - Week 6
Sep 28, 2007We’re already at Week 6 in the prep football season, and some teams are already moving in on playoff spots.
After winning just once last year, Holston is 5-0 and could jump to 2-0 in the Hogoheegee District with a win over Patrick Henry tonight. It’s a pretty safe bet that no one saw that coming. True, the Cavs haven’t played George Wythe, Chilhowie or Rural Retreat yet, but you have to hand it to Jason Matlock for the job he’s done. Matlock is young and affable, and his players have responded well to him by all accounts. Before Holston starts to count on earning a playoff spot or a district title, though, it has to get through the Rebels. Check us out later for more on this and other games, and welcome to the BHC’s prep sports blog.
UPDATE - Halftime score: Holston 14, Patrick Henry 6.
