The strides Blue Ridge’s football team made in 14 days are, in a word, tremendous.
Two weeks ago against Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot, the Barons appeared in the midst of a tailspin. Then they righted the ship in a loss to North Cross. Friday, they appear to have the freighter going full steam ahead with a 26-14 victory over a previously red-hot Covenant squad.
“It’s a huge relief,” said Blue Ridge coach Orlando Patterson. “Our season is far from over we have so much more football to play. We saw the rankings, playoffs are not out of reach, not whatsoever. We just go out, play football, execute and things will come our way.”
The defense played a big role, including a shutout first half that helped put the Eagles into a 19-0 hole that Covenant couldn’t climb out of. Jordan Edelman and Ryan Etheridge applied pressure and created havoc at linebacker, holding the Eagles’ run game to just 81 total yards and a 2.6 yard per carry average.
“A couple of the guys hadn’t played football before so we had to get them into reading plays,” Etheridge said. “We’ve been watching film and they’ve really picked it up and they’ve really been busting it in practice.”
Eric Davis also helped shut down Covenant, with a pair of interceptions on the day. Nathan Johnson had eight tackles to also help bolster the run-stuffing effort.
On offense, P.J. White and Torian Pegram provided a little lightning and thunder in the run game, with White rushing for 118 yards and two touchdowns and Pegram piling up 119 yards and a touchdown. A multi-dimensional rushing strategy helped guide the Barons to the 2012 state title and Blue Ridge may have found a little more of that combination by motioning White into a deep tailback spot to give defenses all kinds of problems with his speed while Pegram pounds it out between the tackles. Patterson made it clear though that Pegram should be a home run hitter too by the end of the season.
“Pegram is coming into form (and) we still have to get him to that second gear, he’s a lot faster than what we’ve seen out here,” Patterson said. “It’s going to be a progressive thing for him.”
While everything was clicking for Barons, nearly nothing went right for the Eagles, who had powered to a 3-1 record behind an efficient offense and a stingy defense of their own. Neither of those units could find their footing against Blue Ridge.
“We started off with too many penalties and I don’t think we lost focus it’s just … it just wasn’t our day,” said Covenant coach Dave Rocco.
Jay Gaffney and Quan Washington had the Eagles’ two rushing touchdowns, but even one of those came on a busted play, as Gaffney fumbled the snap at the one and picked it up before plunging forward for the score.
Those two scored couldn’t get the Eagles back in it though because White, in particular, was too much to handle for Covenant.
“We couldn’t stop (White),” Rocco said. “We knew going in we knew we had to stop (White) and without (White) I don’t know if this is the same result, he’s that good of a football player.”
The Barons will try and keep the momentum going when they host Christchurch Friday while Covenant tries to get back on track on the road against Norfolk Academy.
