As one who has seen both programs a lot over the years the crowd in Danville was treated to what a real program and contender looks like compared to another that is just a pretender and basically has been a pretender for about twenty years now. Congrats to the Spartans and good luck the rest of the way. For GW tonight just solidified there status as a perennial pretender in recent times that has feasted on the soft under belly known as the Piedmont District. They have and have had some great individual players over the last twenty years but, the program is now many notches below its former status as a perennial AAA playoff contender and proof that you can have really good skill people but, until you actually have proficient interior line play on both sides of the ball and can actually play defense with consistent fundamentals you have a diminished to nonexistent chance to be a real threat come playoff time.
I thought the D would catch up to them eventually, just didn't think it would be us. You can't give up 300+ points in 12 games and expect to go far. They gave up 150 to their first 3 foes (what I'd consider their 3 toughest foes as well) in LCA, Amherst, and JF. They tightened up the rest of the way but against mostly sub-par district competition so you were left wondering if they had truly fixed those early week problems or if the recent results were just teams who couldn't score if there wasn't a D on the field.
A lot will be made (rightfully so) of Salem's D totally shutting down an O that had scored 600+ in only 11 games but Salem still put 42 on the board before easing up so asking a team to put 43 up to win, especially in the playoffs, is a tall order indeed.
Regardless, GW was clearly not as bad as this game made them seem.