Maroons survive Bobcat attack

By JIM CUNNINGHAM/Staff

The George Wythe Maroons survived a few defensive lapses to overcome the Radford Bobcats 19-16 in a non-district football game played Friday night at Pendleton Field at GWHS.
George Wythe Head Coach Donnie Pruitt seemed grateful to see his team go to 2-0 on the season despite it not playing an exceptional game. He said his team didn’t practice well this week and didn’t play well, either.
The Maroons were off last Friday after opening up the ’07 campaign with a road win over Tazewell. “That week off hurt us,” he said.
The coach said he took the blame for Radford’s touchdown midway in the fourth quarter that allowed the Bobcats to creep within three points with plenty of time left in the game.
Another huge defensive lapse came in the opening seconds of the game. Radford’s Donald Baylor fumbled the opening kickoff as hordes of Maroons descended upon him back near his own 15-yard line. But Baylor was able to scoop up the ball, evade the first wave of defense and then outraced everyone to the end zone for an 83-yard touchdown.
The George Wythe defense did a good job on Baylor for the rest of the game as well as the entire Bobcats rushing game. Baylor was held to minus four yards on five carries. RHS was held to only 78 yards rushing and 195 total yards. Charvis Claytor was Radford’s leading rusher with 49 yards on 14 carries.
The Maroons earned 151 yards on the ground and 89 passing for a total of 240 yards. The leading ground gainer for GW was Seth White with 71 yards on 14 carries. Larry McCoy rushed for 59 yards on 12 carries and scored a touchdown.
Robert Yonce made two receptions for the Maroons for 42 yards, including a 35-yard TD. Brett Grimes and Josh Stephens also caught passes. GW quarterback Jacob Sharitz completed four of his eight passes for 89 yards, including a TD strike.
Radford (1-1) maintained its 6-0 lead through the remainder of the first half as GW’s first two possessions of the game ended in punts.
But the Maroons began their third drive of the game near midfield and took advantage of it as White ripped off a couple of good runs for a first down to the Radford 35.
Then on the first play of the second quarter, Sharitz connected on a 35-yard pass to Robert Yonce for a 35-yard TD with 11:53 left in the first quarter. The kick for the PAT missed as the teams were tied at 6-6.
The teams exchanged fumbles to end drives over the next few minutes, but GW got it going when it recovered a RHS fumble at the Bobcat 17. White churned up eight yards on a first down carry, and Devin Smith took it down to the six to make it first and goal.
Then Larry McCoy carried it over for the six-yard TD with 6:31 left in the first half. The PAT kick missed, but GW had taken the lead for the first time at 12-6.
The Bobcats made the game closer when they forced GW to punt on its first possession of the second half and took over near midfield. The Maroon defense allowed Radford to advance no further than just inside the 20 before RHS settled for a 40-yard field goal by Michael Goodman to cut the GW lead to just 12-9 with 7:36 left in the third quarter.
The Maroons then put together a good-looking drive highlighted by runs by White and Sharitz and then a 34-yard pass play from Sharitz to Brett Grimes to make it first and goal from the seven.
The Maroons then fumbled the ball away, but got the ball back on the very next play on a Radford fumble. This time Sharitz wasted no time as he took it over on a keeper from two yards away with 4:12 left in the third quarter. Michael Jones kicked the extra point to put GW up 19-9.
Neither team threatened for the rest of the third quarter. Radford’s Claytor made an interception early in the fourth quarter, and the Bobcats used that to ignite a scoring drive that was capped off on a 31-yard pass from Mannie Billings to Ryan Webb for the TD with 7:08 left in the game.
GW used over three minutes off the clock before punting.
The GW defense, along with a couple of crucial Radford penalties, forced the Bobcats to punt the ball back to GW with 1:59 left in the game.
Radford used both of its remaining time-outs and forced GW to punt, but the Bobcats had only 39 seconds left when they took over their last possession at their own 21.
The Maroon defense clamped down and prevented Radford from moving the ball and forced a fumble on the last play of the game.

Radford 6 0 3 7 – 16
George Wythe 0 12 7 0 – 19

Scoring:
RHS – Baylor 83 kickoff return (run failed)
GW – Yonce 35 pass from Sharitz (kick failed)
GW – McCoy 6 run (kick failed)
RHS – Goodman 40 FG
GW – Sharitz 2 run (Jones kick)
RHS – Webb 31 pass from Billings (Goodman kick)

Stats RHS GW
First downs 8 8
Yards rushing 38-78 35-151
Yards passing 117 89
Comp-Att-Int 5-12-0 4-8-1
Fumbles-lost 4-3 2-2
Penalties-yds 8-60 8-60
Punts-Avg. 4-33.0 6-34.7
(Stats courtesy of Kenny Sayers)
(T—2:13)