As far as home debuts go, this one was pristine. Woodberry Forest didn’t waste any time giving their fellow students and alumni something to cheer about. It took 13 seconds for the Tigers to put six points on the board as C.J. Prosise took the opening kickoff against Bishop Ireton 97 yards from the 3-yard line after he burst through a wave of blocks and squirted out to the sidelines.
“I saw the hole real early and took it from there,” said Prosise, who also had a 56-yard scoring return last week. “It felt like the complexion of the game changed right there.”
Behind a 21-point first quarter Woodberry had the game in its pocket from start to finish as the defense finished what the special teams and offense started, preserving the shutout for a 38-0 win.
“We had our (third stringers) out there (at the end) and what was great was that our kids in the huddle saying ‘Look, we take a lot of pride in this. This is for our team. We can’t let this happen,’” said Tigers coach Clint Alexander. “So that was exciting to see that they were fighting that hard for the shutout.”
After Prosise’s score and a 3-and-out from the Cardinals, Rue Hockensmith made it a 14-0 game when he broke to the edge for a 29-yard rushing touchdown with still nine minutes left in the first quarter.
Things settled down for the rest of the quarter, but after Ireton committed a penalty on a Woodberry punt, making it fourth and inches instead of fourth and five, the Tigers picked up their third big play of the first frame when Jacob Rainey scampered for 39 yards into the endzone.
Hockensmith and the defense took over from that point forward. The Tigers linebacker worked his way into the backfield seemingly whenever he wanted to as he timed the Cardinals snap count to cross the line of scrimmage untouched by either the center or adjacent guard.
“It was pretty easy to jump the count,” Hockensmith said. “The quarterback glanced up, the center glanced up and after that they never paid attention so you could have an open release every time — they’re splits were probably three feet wide, so I just slipped through there and that made it pretty easy.”
When Hockensmith wasn’t putting Ireton quarterbacks P.J Zingler and Andrew Bladen under pressure, fellow linebacker Charlie Archer was, and the two combined for five sacks among a countless number of hurries.
Midway through the second quarter, Hockensmith capped a Woodberry drive on a 2-yard run up the gut to increase his team’s lead to 28. Mark Monroe struck a 47-yard field goal in the third quarter, while Rainey finished off all scoring with a 2-yard run after he hit Wallace Branch on a deep pass for 49 yards.
Unfortunately for Woodberry, Branch had to be carted off the field after making his catch when a Cardinal defender hauled the receiver the ground from behind and then landed hard on Branch’s ankle.
With the clock running and Alexander’s third string defense in the game, the Tigers spent the last five minutes making sure their shutout remained in tact. In the final two minutes, Bladen broke loose on a pair of runs to put Ireton in Woodberry territory, something that only happened twice in the contest. However, the Tigers secondary held fast to close out the contest. Woodberry has outscored its first two opponents 54-0.
Woodberry (2-0) travels to McDonogh at 1 p.m.
