Preview: James Wood at Hedgesville (W.Va.)

September 14, 2012    

James Wood at Hedgesville (W.Va.)

When: Tonight, 7

Where: Hedgesville’s Mumaw Stadium

Records: James Wood (1-2); Hedgesville (1-2)

Last week: James Wood lost to Musselman (W.Va.) 41-0; Hedgesville beat Mountain Ridge (Md.) 43-0

Last year: Hedgesville won 17-3

Preview: In talking about his team’s game against Hedgesville tonight, James Wood coach Mike Bolin stressed the importance of one word — health.

After back-to-back blowout losses that saw a number of Colonels limp to the sidelines, perhaps the biggest positive for James Wood this week has been the return of multiple key players.

“Getting healthy has really been the focus for us,” Bolin said. “We’re almost at full strength, we’ll only have two players out this week (one starter and one backup), and that’s made things a lot easier on us. We had a real physical week of practice and the kids responded.” Bolin is hoping that physical play will carry over against an Eagles squad that is riding high after their first win of the season, a 43-0 romp over Moutain Ridge (Md.).

Coach Thomaselli’s squad knows the difficulties that come with having a limited number of players — he said they have 26 players total between the varsity and JV teams — but he’s been impressed with how his team has competed.

Expected starting quarterback Troy Markley broke his leg in the offseason but sophomore Lane Riner has done a good job filling in and slot back Hunter Weaver (141 total yards last week) and tailback Rashaan Shanton (113 yards and three TDs) are dangerous.

“We only threw the ball five times last week, but we completed four of them for two touchdowns,” Thomaselli said. “We just tried to simplify things and finally got off the schneid running the ball.”

The running game is something the Colonels would like to get going after managing just 39 yards on 23 carries last week against Musselman (W.Va.) and the return of Dallas Corbin, who entered the year as the starter at running back, should help.

But while James Wood should have a sizable advantage on the lines, Bolin knows that execution will be the key for his team to break out of its recent funk.

“We’ve got to block and we’ve got to tackle,” Bolin said. “We struggled to do that the last couple weeks and you saw what happened.

“This is a big week for us because our kids aren’t used to taking beatings like we have the last couple weeks. We have to prove to ourselves that we can play.”