Fort Chiswell Pioneers defeat George Wythe Maroons

By JIM CUNNINGHAM/Staff

The Fort Chiswell Pioneers used three touchdowns from Chris Rodriguez and good defense when it was needed the most to defeat the George Wythe Maroons 28-21 in a non-district football game played Friday night at C.F. McKinney Memorial Stadium.
An overflow crowd at FCHS witnessed the Pioneers’ first win over GW since 1996. The fans filled up both the home and visitor’s bleachers and many dotted the grassy banks surrounding the field.
They witnessed an exciting game played by two excellent teams. Fort Chiswell took a 9-7 lead (on a 31-yard field goal by Rodriguez) about midway in the second quarter and expanded that to a 16-7 halftime advantage, the Maroons came back with touchdowns on their first two possessions of the second half to take a 21-16 lead late in the third quarter. But the Pioneers answered two quick scores of their own to reclaim the lead for good.
Fort Chiswell Head Coach Stephen James said his team’s defense had some problems in the first half, but “we made some adjustments in the second half. I’m tremendously proud of our kids. They all played fantastic.”
George Wythe Head Coach H.S. Ingo was disappointed in his team’s defense. “We didn’t stop them,” said, adding that it was due to bad coaching.and that falls back on our coaching. “We had far too many penalties,” he said. “We were out-coached and out-played.”
The Pioneers were led in rushing by Rodriguez who had 277 yards on 31 carries (8.9 average). In addition to scoring three TDs, Rodriguez also kicked a field goal and one extra point. Hody Viars rushed for 57 yards on 10 carries (5.7 average). FC quarterback Will Freeman completed two of his five passes for 35 yards; one was an 18-yarder to Parker Mabe for a touchdown and the other a 17-yarder to Zack Cook.
George Wythe was led in rushing by Brandon Atwell with 230 yards on 23 carries (10.0 average), which included three TDs. GW’s next leading rusher was Randy Divers with 23 yards on seven carries.
Fort Chiswell improves to 5-1 on the season while George Wythe falls to 2-3. Both teams begin their respective district schedules this Friday night with the Pioneers hosting Bland County, and the Maroons hosting Chilhowie.
The teams traded punts on their first possessions of the game. FC’s second series was ended on a fumble.
Atwell gave the Maroons an early lead on GW’s next series, when he took a handoff and outraced the FC defense for a 77-yard touchdown run. Atwell kicked the extra point to put the Maroons up 7-0 with 4:04 left in the first quarter.
The Pioneers didn’t wait long to answer. Rodriguez picked up one first down on a carry to near midfield. A few plays later, the Pioneers were faced with a fourth and one. They decided to go for it, and Rodriguez busted it open for a 39-yard TD run.
GW was called for offsides on the PAT attempt, so FC tried for the two-point conversion. It was stopped, however, as the Maroons held a 7-6 advantage with 1:19 left in the first quarter.
The Maroons had to punt on their next possession, and the Pioneers took over on their own 37-yard line.
Rodriguez picked up one first down on a run, and quarterback Will Freeman passed to Zack Cook for another first down.
Another run by Rodriguez gave FC a first and goal from the nine. But the GW defense buckled down and pushed the Pioneers backwards. They had to settle for a 31-yard field goal by Rodriguez, which gave FC a 9-7 lead with 5:52 remaining in the first half.
After another GW punt, the Pioneers took over deep in their own territory at the 14. Rodriguez quickly got his team out of the hole with a 25-yard scamper. He also carried for another first down, and then Freeman took it himself to move the chains down to the GW 26.
The drive was later capped off on an 18-yard pass to Parker Mabe on a fourth and three pass. The touchdown pass from Freeman was somewhat odd in that the desperation pass from Freeman resembled a punt that hung up in the air for a long time. Mabe was covered by a GW defender, but the ball took so long to come down that the defender mistimed his leap and Mabe gathered it in for the TD. Rodriguez kicked the extra point to extend FC’s lead to 16-7 with only 39 seconds left in the half.
The Maroons made the game even more interesting by scoring on their opening possession of the second half. On runs by Atwell and Divers, GW moved across midfield deep into Pioneer territory.
The drive was later culminated on a fourth down six-yard run by Atwell with 9:14 left in the third quarter. Atwell kicked the extra point to cut FC’s lead to just 16-14.
GW forced the Fort into another quick punt and took over at the FC 43. Mostly behind the running of Atwell, the Maroons put together another scoring drive that was capped off on a 10-yard run by Atwell. He also kicked the PAT to put the Maroons back on top at 21-16 with 3:56 left in the third quarter.
The Pioneers had an answer in the form of Rodriguez who made several good runs to quickly move deep into Maroon territory. Rodriguez finished off the possession with a six-yard TD run with 1:12 left in the third quarter. A two-point pass attempt failed, but the Fort was back on top at 22-21.
Parker Mabe broke up a third down pass on GW’s next series to force a punt, and the Pioneers went on another scoring drive.
It was capped off on a two-yard run by Rodriguez with 8:26 left in the fourth quarter. The kick failed, but the Pioneers had extended their lead to 28-21.
It looked like GW would immediately tie the game back up when Atwell caught a pass and scampered into the end zone on the first play of the series, but it was called back due to offensive pass interference.
GW ended up punting on that possession. The Pioneers also had to punt on their next series, but held the Maroons on their next series and took over on downs as the clock ran down to the final minute.

George Wythe 7 0 14 0 – 21
Fort Chiswell 6 10 6 6 – 28

Scoring:
GW – Brandon Atwell 77 run (Atwell kick)
FC – Chris Rodriguez 39 run (run failed)
FC – C. Rodriguez 31 FG
FC – Parker Mabe 18 pass from Will Freeman (Rodriguez kick)
GW – B. Atwell 6 run (Atwell kick)
GW – B. Atwell 10 run (Atwell kick)
FC – C. Rodriguez 6 run (pass failed)
FC – C. Rodriguez 2 run (kick failed)

Team GW FC
First downs 9 15
Yards rushing 39-271 46-344
Yards passing 0 35
Comp-Att-Int 0-3-0 2-5-0
Punts-Avg. 5-32.4 3-32.7
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-1
Penalties-yds 8-79 3-30
(Stats courtesy of Kenny Sayers)
(T – 2:24)