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Every day in practice this week, Monticello’s defense heard exactly what they had to do to neutralize Orange County’s downhill run game.
“All week Coach (Rob) Ayres was drilling in practice maintain your gap, maintain your responsibility, don’t get beat across your face — stuff like that,” said Monticello senior Alex Curry. “The discipline of the guys (helped us) achieve that.”
Curry and the rest of the Mustangs did just that, playing tremendous, aggressive, fundamental football on defense in a 26-14 victory over the Hornets. The Mustangs held Orange to just 108 yards of total offense and surrendered just a single offensive touchdown, a 7-yard DeAngelo Hunt scoring run set up by an interception that gave Orange the ball on the 10-yardline late in the first quarter. The Hornets’ other score came at the end of the first half on a scoop and score for a touchdown off a blocked punt.
“We saw how powerful Orange’s run game was against other teams and there was a lot of talk about how we were kind of weak against the run and we kind of took that personal this week and really looked to stop the run,” said Monticello’s Seth Weaver who helped set the tone with a physical hit early on in run support and also caught three passes for 58 yards on offense.
It was a big-time performance for a unit that’s made big strides since their opener against powerful Lake Taylor, and the defense keyed that, with textbook tackling and a couple of interceptions by Syrael Breckenridge.
“They really showed up tonight, I thought we played extremely aggressively and we ran to the football really well and we tackled well,” said Monticello coach Jeff Lloyd. “That’s a hard team to contain. They’re big and it’s coming right at you, it’s hard to stop. Our kids played well.”
The Mustangs also got a monster effort on the ground from Darian Bates as the senior running back ran for a career high 160 yards on 26 touches while scoring a pair of touchdowns. Bates put together that outing despite nursing some injuries.
“He reminds me of old film of Jim Brown, he runs for 10 and he looks like he’s dead and then he gets up,” Lloyd said. “He’s got a tweak in his ankle, he’s been icing it. I told him ‘the great ones answer the bell’ and I thought he really did that tonight. I thought our offensive line did an extremely good job tonight.”
Monticello ran into Orange’s ballhawking secondary in the passing game as the Hornets’ unit that picked off three passes against Albemarle snagged another two interceptions against the Mustangs. Darius Minor and Jay Lewis-Nixon picked off a pass each.
Despite those two picks though, Monticello quarterback Kevin Jarrell made several key plays when the Mustangs had to have them especially on the Mustangs’ third quarter scoring drive, sneaking in for a touchdown and also hitting Reid Huffman for a 26-yard gain to setup that plunge that put Monticello up 26-14.
The Hornets, on the other hand, couldn’t convert in key situations all night, going 0 for 11 on third down attempts and 0 for 2 on fourth down conversions. As a team Orange managed just five first downs with three of those coming via penalty.
“We have to be able to get first downs to keep the ball,” said Orange coach Jessie Lohr. “We come out here and go three downs and get a penalty, get a gift, and then go three downs and kick. We have to be able to hit some passes to help our run game.”
Tre Smith finished with 59 yards on 11 carries for the Hornets, with the bulk of that coming on a 26-yard sprint. The Mustangs locked in on DeAngelo Hunt and held the Orange back to just 30 yards on 14 touches. The Hornets managed just 10 yards through the air and had several key drops.
Monticello (5-2) will head to Louisa County for another critical matchup next week while Orange (4-3) will play at Charlottesville Friday night.
