Minutes after his team’s shut out loss to Courtland a week ago, Louisa County Coach Mark Fischer was already looking ahead, insisting that the Lions would begin preperations for their next opponent, Jefferson District foe William Monroe, early the following morning.
Apparently, that forward-thinking approach paid off.
Against the Dragons Friday night, Louisa (3-1, 1-0 JD) bolted from the gate and never looked back, scoring on all but one of their first half possessions and tallyng nearly 500 yards of total offense en route to a 56-0 road win.
“I thought the kids responded real well this week to taking a big loss like we did,” Fischer said. “The kids did a great job all week [in practice] and we were pretty focused tonight.”
Indeed, Louisa’s offense showed its focus early and often as seven different Lions found the end zone in the game’s opening half. The ground attack was the squad’s most relable weapon producing nearly 400 yards courtesy of a host of runners.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can carry the ball and we’ve got a couple of good quarterbacks and only one football…We intend to be able to run a fresh horse in there every series if we can,” Fischer said. “We just got to make sure we take care of our jobs up front and give those kids lanes to run in.”
Junior Anthony Hunter found plenty of room to run each of the three times Fischer called his number, amassing a team-high 105 rushing yards including a 85-yard touchdown jaunt that put Louisa up 28-0 early in the second quarter. Hunter was the only Lion to hit pay dirt twice as he found the end zone again on a 1-yard run about five minutes later. That effort capped a 3-play, 27-yard march set up by a Monroe fumble.
Senior Glen Cosby found his share of running room too, tacking on 59 yards and sparking Louisa’s offensive explosion with a 34-yard touchdown run barely three minutes into the opening quarter.
Much like he rotated running backs, Fischer shifted between quarterbacks Dillon Hollins and Kire’ Worley throughout much of the first half and both were pretty effective. Hollins completed two of his three passes for 68 yards and had a hand in a pair of Lion scores. He hit senior Rashawn Jackson on a 62-yard touchdown pass then scored on a 10-yard scamper a few minutes later. Worley connected on his only pass attempt, good for 16 yards, and scored on a 11-yard run.
Seniors Ernie Cross and Casey Brown contributed the Lions other two scores on a pair of 1-yard efforts.
For their part, William Monroe (0-4, 0-1 JD) couldn’t get much going on the ground or through the air as the suffocating Louisa defense held the Dragons to just 58 yards of total offense.
But first-year coach Mark Sanford found some postives in the contest, particularly in the second half when Monroe managed to keep the Lions out of the end zone.
“We wanted the kids to play with some heart in the second half and I think we accomplished that,” Sanford said. “We talked to them at half time about coming out and playing a zero-zero game in the second half and they did that.”
Louisa travels to undefeated Western Albermarle next week while Monroe visits Charlottesville.
