Albemarle football clawed all the way back only to have it ripped back away from them.
The Patriots fell 40-31 Tuesday evening to Patrick Henry-Roanoke in a game that was shuffled from Friday to Wednesday to Thursday to Monday to Tuesday. After falling into a 10-0 hole and eventually a 31-13 hole, Albemarle had to battle back scoring 18 unanswered points to tie the game with 4:25 to play behind a powerful, effective run game from DaQuandre Taylor and Mahki Washington and a couple of timely passes from Taylor to Bruce McClain.
“I really am proud of them and not just them but everyone involved in our operation — one day you’re playing or you think you’re playing and you’re not,” said Albemarle coach Brandon Isaiah “But if you want to win you’ve got to play good football and we did some really good things but we also did too many costly things.”
Patrick Henry refused to go away too, marching and milking more than three minutes off the clock before George Langhammer kicked a field goal from 28 yards out with 50 seconds left to play. That gave Langhammer, who missed a field goal that would’ve extended the Patrick Henry lead in the third quarter, a measure of redemption.
His make gave Albemarle, after the kickoff, a lot of ground to cover and that can be tough to do quickly with Leroy Thomas patrolling the secondary. In the closing seconds, Thomas broke character and peeked in the backfield, spying Taylor, who’s eyes quickly tracked to the sideline.
“I had my eyes on the quarterback which a corner is not supposed to do but it’s a good thing I did because I saw he was getting ready to throw and broke on the ball,” Thomas said.
He broke on the ball and seemed to arrive well before any Albemarle receiver did, plucking the pass cleanly out of the air and racing down the sideline before weaving around a couple of would-be tacklers and scoring to put the game out of reach with 0.9 seconds to play.
“Albemarle is a good team, every year we play them it’s a good game like this, a one-point game,” Thomas said. “I’m just glad we came back and won.”
Turnovers — five lost in total including a quartet of fumbles that started with the first kickoff Albemarle received in the opening minutes after a Patrick Henry touchdown– cost Albemarle dearly. Two in particular stung as they both came in the redzone, including one just before the half where a touchdown would have cut the deficit to 17-14. Penalties also piled up including a run of illegal shifts and illegal formations as well as some critical pass interference calls in the early going.
“It just always tough looking at games where a play here or a play there — being able to fix those as we move forward is really going to be important,” Isaiah said. “It’ll determine what direction our season goes.”
But Albemarle kept working and kept bouncing back every time it seemed Patrick Henry was ready to put them away. Taylor and Washington were a big reason why, with Taylor rushing for 207 yards on 21 carries while Washington rushed for 137 yards on 19 touches. Albemarle took a field goal late in the third despite being down 18, and it paid off. Washington struck from 43 yards out to end the third quarter and after a three and out, Taylor connected with McClain for a 66-yard play in the fourth to help set up the game-tying touchdown and two-point. The touchdown came on a toss from Taylor to McClain from 15 yards and Taylor powered in for the 2-point.
The Albemarle defense helped fuel the rally and managed to get to Thomas or Patrick Henry sophomore quarterback Roy Gunn — who still managed to rush for three touchdowns — enough times with key sacks or tackles for a loss by John Barber, Alex Kiel and Jake Romback helping force key punts, turnovers on downs or the missed field goal. That opened the door for the offense to fuel the rally and give Albemarle a shot at the end.
With the delays Albemarle won’t get much time to be hurt over the loss. Saturday at 2 p.m. they’ll take on Louisa County in Albemarle’s Jefferson District opener.
