The Gladiator JVs completed their season tonight on a high note with a 36-20 road victory over Stuarts Draft. It was their second win of the season over the Cougars and actually their third win this calendar year over their nearby rivals, two of which came on the Cougar's home field. With tonight's win, RHS finishes the season at 7-1, and someone said that there might be a three-way tie in the district race, with Staunton and Buffalo Gap also finishing with just one loss. Regardless those three teams should be optimistic about the future after having such successful seasons.
As for this game tonight, don't get the idea that it was ever really that close because the Gladiators scored all they would need in a busy second quarter, as they put three scores on the board to lead 22-0 at the break. They then opened the second half action by driving for another score and a 28-0 lead before the Cougars came to life and closed the gap late.
In that pivotal second quarter, just about anything that can go wrong in a football game did go wrong for the home team. They mishandled kickoffs, they muffed their own snaps, they fumbled a time or two, and in most cases the Big Red made them pay for their mistakes by turning them into touchdowns.
The Gladiator running game was on full display again tonight but with a new twist or at least he was new to me. He being number 23, and my sources say he had been out with injuries. The name was Chase Donathan, and he added extra depth to an already deep stable of Riverheads running backs. I know you can't tell much from just one game but he looked like he had some good instincts and was hard to bring down. And like several of his teammates who enjoyed success this year, he was only an eighth grader. Needless to say, RHS will "run the ball" quite a bit in the coming seasons.
However, the RHS passing attack was nothing to sneeze at tonight and accounted for roughly half the Gladiator points. You could count on one hand the number of passes thrown by quarterback Levi Dunlap, but he gets an A + for efficiency as two of them went for touchdowns to his favorite target Austin Roberts, and a third connection between the two led to yet another score. So with Levi being the third Dunlap in a row at the QB spot for Riverheads, that facet of the game also looks to be secure for at least three more seasons.
To give fair credit to Stuarts Draft, they did cut down significantly on their mistakes in the second half and gave a much better account of themselves. But once RHS took its 28-0 lead, it was all about just having fun, trading scores, and getting the fans in their cars to warm up those frozen toes.
Now of course we turn our attention to the Varsity game Friday night. They have taken any mention of rain out of the forecast for the foreseeable future so we know the game will be played on a dry field. So hopefully the Big Red will follow the sterling example set by the JVs and pick up their own third win of 2021 over the Cougars. To refresh everyone's memory, Riverheads won a tight 10-7 overtime classic in Greenville back in late March or early April when both teams entered the game unbeaten. Both then advanced all the way to their respective state finals, which they each got to host by the way.
Then earlier this season, mid-September to be exact, they played a non-district game in the Cougar den to fill out the schedule for one another. In that one, the Cougars stuffed RHS in the first half and took a 10-7 lead into the locker room that might have been 13-7 if they had not elected to take a field goal off the board when a flag was thrown on the Big Red. But Riverheads rallied in the second half and posted a hard-fought 28-10 win. As for Friday's game, both teams will leave it all out on the field as they are playing for the Shenandoah District title. The game will however have no bearing on either's playoff seeding as they each have the number one seed nailed down in their respective regions.
As for this game tonight, don't get the idea that it was ever really that close because the Gladiators scored all they would need in a busy second quarter, as they put three scores on the board to lead 22-0 at the break. They then opened the second half action by driving for another score and a 28-0 lead before the Cougars came to life and closed the gap late.
In that pivotal second quarter, just about anything that can go wrong in a football game did go wrong for the home team. They mishandled kickoffs, they muffed their own snaps, they fumbled a time or two, and in most cases the Big Red made them pay for their mistakes by turning them into touchdowns.
The Gladiator running game was on full display again tonight but with a new twist or at least he was new to me. He being number 23, and my sources say he had been out with injuries. The name was Chase Donathan, and he added extra depth to an already deep stable of Riverheads running backs. I know you can't tell much from just one game but he looked like he had some good instincts and was hard to bring down. And like several of his teammates who enjoyed success this year, he was only an eighth grader. Needless to say, RHS will "run the ball" quite a bit in the coming seasons.
However, the RHS passing attack was nothing to sneeze at tonight and accounted for roughly half the Gladiator points. You could count on one hand the number of passes thrown by quarterback Levi Dunlap, but he gets an A + for efficiency as two of them went for touchdowns to his favorite target Austin Roberts, and a third connection between the two led to yet another score. So with Levi being the third Dunlap in a row at the QB spot for Riverheads, that facet of the game also looks to be secure for at least three more seasons.
To give fair credit to Stuarts Draft, they did cut down significantly on their mistakes in the second half and gave a much better account of themselves. But once RHS took its 28-0 lead, it was all about just having fun, trading scores, and getting the fans in their cars to warm up those frozen toes.
Now of course we turn our attention to the Varsity game Friday night. They have taken any mention of rain out of the forecast for the foreseeable future so we know the game will be played on a dry field. So hopefully the Big Red will follow the sterling example set by the JVs and pick up their own third win of 2021 over the Cougars. To refresh everyone's memory, Riverheads won a tight 10-7 overtime classic in Greenville back in late March or early April when both teams entered the game unbeaten. Both then advanced all the way to their respective state finals, which they each got to host by the way.
Then earlier this season, mid-September to be exact, they played a non-district game in the Cougar den to fill out the schedule for one another. In that one, the Cougars stuffed RHS in the first half and took a 10-7 lead into the locker room that might have been 13-7 if they had not elected to take a field goal off the board when a flag was thrown on the Big Red. But Riverheads rallied in the second half and posted a hard-fought 28-10 win. As for Friday's game, both teams will leave it all out on the field as they are playing for the Shenandoah District title. The game will however have no bearing on either's playoff seeding as they each have the number one seed nailed down in their respective regions.
