For one minute and 42 seconds, Louisa County looked unmistakably like a championship football team. For the other 46 minutes and 12 seconds, at least according to the Lions’ head coach, that wasn’t the case.
“We’ve got to execute from the jump and until we do that we’re overrated,” said Louisa coach Mark Fischer.
Fischer may have been frustrated, but his team rolled 50-21 over William Monroe, sparked largely by that 1:42 stretch near the end of the second quarter. That’s when, with the game knotted at 14-14, Louisa exploded.
Anthony Hunter got the run started by finishing off a drive with a 2-yard dive into the end zone. On the ensuing Monroe drive, Elijiah Payne broke on a Monroe pass from Mitchell Morris, intercepted it and raced 53 yards for a touchdown just 40 seconds after Hunter’s dive, and Hunter added a 2-point conversion. After using timeouts to conserve clock and forcing a three and out by Monroe, Louisa struck quickly again with junior quarterback Kire Worley hitting Raheem Johnson for a 45-yard touchdown. The long toss capped a 22-point outburst and gave Louisa a 36-14 halftime lead.
“We’ve got to execute when it comes time to execute, we’re not going to keep getting lucky,” Fischer said.
Monroe’s game plan played a big part in Louisa’s struggles, and Fischer was the first to credit the Dragons’ efforts. Monroe stacked the box with nine or 10 players at times aggressively attacked the gaps up front to slow down Louisa’s explosive run game. That forced Louisa to turn to the air, and Worley rose to the occasion, getting into a groove after a slow start with three touchdown passes, two of them to Johnson—the first to the freshman wideout went for 24 yards midway through the second quarter — and a second half toss to Rayshawn Jackson from 45 yards out.
“I mean, yeah, we responded,” Fischer said. “We had to and we did, but we still should’ve been able to run the ball and we didn’t.”
Monroe pieced together a valiant effort, and the wear and tear from the performance showed in the exhaustion of players like Mitchell Morris, Doug Sizemore and Zach Cummings.
“Our guys have gotten over the fear factor, they’ve gotten over the lack of confidence,” said Monroe coach Mark Sanford. “They played their butts off I was very proud of those guys. If we don’t make a couple of defensive mistakes, we’re toe-to-toe with these guys”
Monroe came up with a blocked punt recovered by Matt McCracken that set up the game’s opening score when Morris found Zach Duprey from three yards out on a play action pass. Morris finished with three touchdowns and a pair of interceptions on the night while throwing for 172 yards. Duprey led all pass catchers with five receptions for 52 yards.
Louisa managed to slow down the Monroe rushing attack, limiting Sizemore to 54 yards on 16 carries. Louisa County’s Brandon Ornduff’s eight solo stops played a big role n that effort.
Louisa will take on Western Albemarle for homecoming next week while Monroe hosts Charlottesville in its district home opener.
