Heritage Rallies Past Wood, 43-29

Posted: August 31, 2013

By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI

WINCHESTER — For a quarter and a half, the James Wood football players were rollin’, their fans were rockin’, and it looked like Mark McHale’s coaching debut with the Colonels was going to end with the type of score that James Wood used to see on a weekly basis back when McHale was a senior in 1967.

But coaches always preach that you can’t give up too many explosive plays, and about halfway through the second quarter senior wide receiver Justin Bethea and the rest of the Heritage football team started to put on a fireworks show.

Bethea scored four touchdowns — three of which came after the Pride found themselves trailing by 15 with 6:15 left in the second quarter — and Heritage rallied for a 43-29 victory in the season opener for both teams Friday night at Jerry L. Kelican Stadium in non-district action.

Following the 2-yard touchdown from Brady Hepner that put James Wood (0-1) up 22-7 at the 6:15 mark, Bethea caught a 38-yard pass on the Pride’s first play from scrimmage on their next possession down to the James Wood 12, which led to a touchdown that made it 22-14.

Bethea then had an 82-yard punt return with 3:21 left in the second that made it 22-21 going into the half, he had a 21-yard touchdown catch that cut Heritage’s deficit to 29-27 with 3:25 left in the third quarter, and he then put the Pride (1-0) up for good with a 60-yard punt return for a touchdown — and adding a two-point conversion catch for good measure — that made it 35-29 with 1:51 left in the third quarter.

All told, Bethea had six catches for 127 yards and two touchdowns, two two-point conversion catches, and had the two punt return touchdowns that went for 142 yards.

The punt returns in particular were backbreakers, and Bethea — who had never returned kicks on a consistent basis before — gave a lot of credit to his teammates.

“We got some really good blocks, and we just took it to the house twice,” Bethea said. “I think they really gave us the momentum going into the third and fourth quarters. I feel like they kind of turned the game around.”

Heritage needed to do something to stymie the Colonels, because its defense had no answer for James Wood’s zone-read option in the first half.

Though the drive ended with a fumble, the Colonels announced they would be a new team early by marching 47 yards on their first drive, with six of those plays starting with the junior quarterback Hepner taking snaps out of the shotgun.

James Wood was able to run up the middle and to the outside with great success using the zone-read option, and the Colonels ran with speed and broke numerous tackles over a Heritage defense that was not expecting so much of that offensive look.

James Wood ran for 218 yards on 31 carries in the first half, with Hepner (11 carries, 95 yards, two touchdowns for the game), tailback Tyler Bishop (23 carries, 129 yards) and fullback Landon Rutherford (14 carries, 86 yards) rushing for one touchdown each in the first half.

“We didn’t run that a lot in our scrimmages, and they weren’t sure what to do,” Hepner said. “And our intensity was up big time. It was so much different than last year, and we just put it to them in the first half.”

Though the Colonels let Heritage back into the game by halftime, James Wood did regroup to start the second half. The Colonels forced a Heritage punt after five plays, then saw Hepner finish off an eight-play, 71-yard drive with a 24-yard touchdown run down the right sideline to make it 29-21 with 7:59 left in the third quarter.

But after that, Heritage’s defensive adjustments began making an impact. The Colonels only ran for 13 more yards the rest of the game, and with Hepner not the throwing threat that normal starting quarterback Aaron Butler is (Butler should be back next week after being diagnosed with mononucleosis Aug. 4), the Pride’s defense was able to step up and make stops.

“We adjusted our end play in the second half, and folded a linebacker over, because we were losing an extra hat on the back side, and that’s why they were able to keep running it,” said Heritage first-year coach Reed Prosser, who coached at Millbrook for the previous seven seasons. “We were able to slow them down in the third and fourth quarter with a couple of the adjustments we made.

“I thought [assistant coach Chris] Tibbs did a great job of finding what was going on, and our kids did a really good job of reacting and adjusting during the game.”

Heritage was able to close out the game with a 14-play, 74-yard drive that ended with Daniel Adigun’s second touchdown run with 4:16 left to make it 43-29. The Pride converted two fourth downs (one on a fake punt in their own territory) and a third down on the drive.

Though it was a defeat, McHale said he got precisely the type of effort he wanted.

What he didn’t like were some of the mistakes. In addition to the fumble at the Heritage 27 on the opening drive, the Colonels fumbled on their own 17 on their fourth drive to set up the first Heritage score. James Wood also had a couple penalties at the end of the first half that took it out of field goal range.

“Those early touchdowns gave the players confidence,” McHale said. “We told them at halftime that we can’t have those turnovers. We’ve got to bury [the opponent when we can]. We shot ourselves in the foot.

“I thought our defense really improved. They tackled better, they contained better. We got beat on a couple of deep balls, but they were perfect throws. They might not make those next week. We bottled up the run good. I was proud of them, and I was proud of Brady, because we threw him into the fire at quarterback and did well.”

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. on Twitter @WinStarSports1