Blues’ winning streak is now history

By DAVE COX/Staff
“The Streak” is history!
The Graham G-Men paid a visit to Ernie Hicks Stadium last Friday and its few fans and the school buses carrying the Graham team, band and cheerleaders left with horns blasting and people screaming after their team wiped the Richlands slate clean with an 18-13 upset victory to hand the Tornado its first loss in 34 regular season football games. The Blues were hoping to extend their streak past the 33-game mark, the longest in Virginia, but Graham had other ideas. Using their basic traditional smash-mouth style, the visitors ground out the come-from behind Southwest District victory to drop the Blues from the ranks of the undefeated and out of first place in the district. Graham is now unbeaten in the conference although the G-Men still have an overall losing record of 3-2.
While Graham had an excellent game plan and executed it to perfection, Richlands (4-1, 1-1 SWD) proved to be its own worst enemy with four turnovers. Still, the Blues had their chances to win, but the Graham defense throttled several RHS drives and mixed in a little luck on offense as the game unfolded.
“Offensively, we did some good things, but we turned the ball over and that’s why we got beat. You let a good team hang around and bad things happen,” said Richlands head coach Greg Mance. “We knew Graham was a good team.”
A second quarter drive by Graham, its best by far to that point, looked dead in the water at the Richlands three yard line after the Blues’ defense tackled Ronnie Scott short of the goal line on a fourth down situation. However, the football went skyward and was grabbed out of midair by Tyler Barreras who bulled his way into the end zone for the first Graham score of the night. The Blues never seemed to recover from that moment.
The Graham defense made a huge goal line stand in the first period to stop a Richlands drive at the GHS one yard line.
The Blues recovered on its next possession after Graham used a quick kick on third down to get out of the shadow of its own goal line. The kick traveled only to the GHS 20 where the Blues toiok over. Five plays later, Joel Elswick hooked up with Matt Davis on a five yard touchdown pass to give the Blues an early lead. Romulo Fajardo booted the extra point to make it a 7-0 contest with 1:48 remaining in the initial period.
Richlands started with excellent field position at the Graham 45 on its next offensive series, but got only to the GHS 20 before losing the football on downs. That’s when Graham, which had been held to three yards on its first three offensive possessions combined , put on a 13-play drive to score on the Scott fumble at the Tornado three. A run for the two point conversion was stopped short and Richlands still led 7-6 with 4:49 left until halftime.
Scott intercepted an Elswick pass and Drew Presnell swiped a David Marrs offering to hold the score at 7-6 at the intermission.
A Ben Addison kick off return of 36 yards set the Blues up at the Graham 48-yard line to start the second half, but another RHS turnover stopped the Blues at the 30. Elswick threw his second pick of the night into the hands of Dominique Lane who returned it 25 yards.
Graham moved to the Tornado 48, but punted from there. Richlands fumbled the ball away on its first play of the series, giving possession right back to the G-Men at the Blues’ 19. Marrs followed his big line in from the one seven plays later to give his team the lead for good at 12-7 with 3:21 left in the third chapter. A conversion pass fell incomplete.
Driving for the go-ahead touchdown, the turnover bug hit the Blues once again, this time in the form of a fumble at the Graham 6-yard line. That’s when the G-Men put on their most impressive drive of the game!
Facing a third down and seven situation, Marrs scooted 26 yards for a huge GHS first down. On the very next play, Barreras eluded the Tornado defense on a 45-yard burst to the Tornado 20. It took six plays from there before Marrs put the dagger through the Blues’ 33-game win streak on another one yard run to make it an 18-7 game with 8:08 left to play. A conversion pass was incomplete.
The Blues refused to fold their tent and raced to a quick answer to Marrs’ tally. Elswick passed his way to the Graham two before Austin Fuller fought his way into the end zone with 5:52 remaining in the game. A conversion pass was unsuccessful as the Blues tried to add to the 18-13 score.
The Graham defense held fast on two more Richlands attempts to pull out their third straight come-from-behind win in a row, but this time it was not meant to be!
Elswick passed for 171 yards on 39 attempts and 20 completions, but the Blues’ ground game was basically non-existent with just 80 yard. Elswick accounted for 26 of those on eight carries.
Graham rushed for 163 yards, led by Barreras with 81 yards on 17 carries. Scott added 56 yards rushing for the visitors. Marrs threw for 82 yards with 60 of them going to J. K. Goins on four completions. Marrs went 6-for-11 on the night with one pass intercepted.
Shane Wicks had 10 1/2 tackles on defense for Richlands.
The loss was the first regular season defeat for the Blues since an overtime decision to Gate City to start the 2004 season.
“We’ve been living on thin ice for the last three weeks,” said Mance. “We’re not doing the little things right, but we’ll be back. You haven’t seen the last of Richlands yet.”