Goochland’s defensive line kept coming in waves. They pressured King William quarterback Lance Alfonso and terrorized the King William backfield even as the offense sputtered and kept the defense on the field much of the second half.
The Bulldogs’ front just kept pushing, kept clawing, kept disrupting.
“We have a lot of great players (on the defensive line) and I’m just excited that I get to play alongside them,” said Goochland’s Jacob Massey. “We’ve all grown up from when we were playing together as kindergarteners on to seniors. It’s just an experience and an honor to play alongside them.”
Massey and Jamal Carter led that relentless effort and with the secondary clamping down and forcing incompletion after incompletion, Goochland beat King William 21-0 in the Region 2A semifinals for the Bulldogs’ fifth shutout of the year.
“We did a lot of things really well as a team — I feel like defensively everybody had moments where they stepped up,” said Goochland coach Alex Fruth. “I felt like every time I looked up it was someone else contributing. That’s a team win.”
The Bulldogs advance to the Region 2A championship game next week where they’ll host Poquoson. Getting there, even with that stifling defense, was no easy task. The Bulldogs took a 7-0 lead on a brilliant 36-yard run by Devin McCray where the junior quarterback tightroped the sideline and leapt over a sprawling defender on the way. But outside of that run a few other bright moments, the offense struggled to get the ball moving. The Bulldogs weren’t fazed though, turning instead to special teams to come up with a difference-maker.
“We’ve been talking for the last two weeks about how kickoff is going to take one, kickoff is going to take one,” Fruth said. “Last week we got to the five, so this week we just finished it off.”
The Bulldogs broke through with Quincy Snead collecting the ball just inside the 10 on the opening kickoff of the second half, picked his way through King William’s coverage, broke a tackle and raced into the end zone from 92 yards out, giving Goochland a 14-0 lead and putting King William in a challenging hole.
From there, the defense went right back to work, with Carter stuffing a play on second down and Massey coming up with a sack. While the offense turned the ball over and struggled to move the ball, the defense kept rising to the occasion. Even when facing a short field they kept coming up with stops, like De’Andre Robinson pouncing on a fumble.
“We have depth at defensive line and it’s not maybe traditional-looking kids across the board, but we’re able to rotate them,” Fruth said. “We’re keeping them fresh.”
It also helped that at least twice the Bulldogs avoided disaster in the second half. Punter Jacob Hayward provided one of the escapes. In the fourth quarter with 8:11 to play and Goochland still up 14-0, he collected a snap that sailed over his head and fought off a rush by King William to get off a wobbly punt that took a tremendous bounce and rolled to the King William 45. Another escape came when Goochland was tagged with a pair of personal fouls that put King William within striking distance, but the secondary and pass rush rose to the occasion, combining to force four straight incompletions on the ensuing set of downs.
Goochland almost immediately fumbled after that stop on offense, forcing the defense to again make a stand with a short field.
“We had a hard week of practice and executed every play we could,” Carter said. “It all started Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday leading up to Friday.”
The defense also got a huge lift from the return of Sam Brooks at linebacker as he helped ensure that the King William ground game didn’t break off any huge plays. He made a particularly huge play late in the first half, flying up to stuff a jet sweep from middle linebacker before King William’s Marc Gresham could get moving up the field.
The offense eventually put the game on ice with under two minutes to play when Connor Popielarz broke off a 55-yard touchdown run to extend the lead to 21-0, but by then, the defense and special teams had done the bulk of the heavy lifting.
As a program, Goochland has always put a high value on getting to practice as a team, as a family on Thanksgiving. With the win over the Cavaliers they’re back there for the third straight season, playing Poquoson for a region title and a spot in the state final four.
“Coming out after eating all day and playing a football game on Friday, it’s always a blessing because once it’s over, it’s over,” Carter said. “So I love it to death.”
Goochland defensive lineman Jamal Carter talks about the Bulldogs’ Region 2A semifinal win over King William and getting a chance to practice on Thanksgiving in First Off the Field presented by @PT_acac pic.twitter.com/J14pCMouMd
— scrimmageplay (@scrimmageplay) November 17, 2018
