Wildcats Deal Colonels 41-20 Loss

Posted: September 14, 2013

By GREG BRILL

Special to The Winchester Star

FRONT ROYAL — Warren County had made a reputation of running the football well in its first two games.

With that in mind, the Colonels crowded the line early during Friday night’s non-district game with the Wildcats, gambling that they could stop the run from the point of attack.

With virtually nine players in the box in the first quarter, James Wood left itself open for Warren County to hit a few big plays.

The Wildcats had the home run ready. Three times, in fact.

Demetrus Yates burst into the open on the first play from scrimmage to score from 69 yards out, and Warren County quarterback Austin Butler beat the defense twice in single-coverage for a pair of scores as the Wildcats opened up a 15-point lead by the end of the first quarter and rolled to a 41-20 win at Blanton Stadium.

Warren County (2-1) led 34-5 at the half, made it 35-unanswered points when Josh Newman scored on a 51-yard run before two minutes had elapsed in the second half, and ran up 370 total yards against the winless Colonels (0-3).

“We’ve just got to play better technique,” said James Wood coach Mark McHale, who was the head coach for two seasons (1998-99) at Warren County. “We’re in the process of building fundamentals. We work on form tackling every day. It’s just going to take us [time] to teach them the basics of blocking and tackling.”

In a battle of Butlers at quarterback, first-year starter Austin Butler ended up hitting the big play to take the spotlight away from the more seasoned Cam Butler, James Wood’s signal caller.

After Yates’ sprint for a touchdown had Warren County up 6-0 just 17 seconds into the game, James Wood closed the gap with a safety (Daniel Funkhouser tackled Austin Butler in the end zone) and a 39-yard field goal from Will Spears with 5:19 left to make it 6-5.

The baseball-like score did not stay that way much longer. Joseph Rutherford’s 57-yard kickoff return set Warren County up at the James Wood 33, and two plays later, Austin Butler hit the first of his two big pass plays.

Facing a stacked line, then a blitz, Butler hit Jontae Rollins over the middle off a skinny post, and Rollins went in to complete the 33-yard pass play for a touchdown.

The Colonels then had the first of their three turnovers, and Butler struck again. With the Colonels bringing another blitz, Butler found football newcomer Casey Stewart for a 25-yard touchdown pass. Butler lobbed the ball to Stewart perfectly, and the Wildcats had a 20-5 lead with still 3:10 left to play in the first quarter.

Butler, who threw just six passes in the game but completed three for 92 yards (30.7 per catch), said he didn’t mind finding a player who used to attend local rival Skyline (Stewart was the second leading scorer last winter for the basketball team there) twice for receptions (Stewart also caught a pass for a gain of 34 that set up Newman’s first touchdown, a 6-yard run late in the first half to make it 34-5).

“He’s from Skyline, and it was a good feeling to get him his first Warren County touchdown,” said Butler, with a wide smile.

Butler had opened the season with a 25-pass effort in a loss at Skyline, and he knew if the Colonels brought heat, he would have to be ready to find receivers quick.

“We expected the blitz, and we knew we were going to go over top of [the rush],” Butler said. “We had great play-calling and we executed well.”

Just about anything the Wildcats wanted to do on the offensive end, at least in the first half, usually worked out.

James Wood had to be feeling good after a punt by Spears pinned the Wildcats at their 1-yard line on the last play of the first quarter. But Warren County drove the length of the field, picking up five first downs and getting a crucial gain of 33 by Butler off a read-option to the James Wood 21 during the drive. Yates had a couple of big gains, and Butler capped it with a keeper from the 1 on third down.

The next series saw Warren County get a short field to work with, starting a drive from the James Wood 43. Butler hit Stewart with another lob for a gain of 34, and Newman went in from the 6 on the next play for a 34-5 lead with 2:36 left.

Coming off a 37-point outing in a home win last week against Brentsville (which has lost 31 straight and last won in its first game of 2010), Warren County made it 71 points over six quarters with its 34-point showing at the half Friday.

“The one thing we hadn’t done [before Friday] was successfully throw the ball down the field, and it cost us in [our] first game,” Warren County coach Tony Tallent said. “We really worked on that in practice and we felt like we had to exploit some matchups there.

“But, really, what started everything off was the running game, because of the long run [by Yates] on the first play. We’re good on defense, too. The five points we gave up early was on the [mistakes made by] offense.”

James Wood went with its running game most of the night, even when it fell far behind. McHale said he wanted to establish a little more toughness in that area with his team, and several backs demonstrated they could handle the football for good gains.

The first half saw Landon Rutherford get most of the action, as his 15 carries over two quarters represented 60 percent of the play calls by the Colonels.

In the second half, it was sophomore Tyler Bishop grinding out the yardage, and he would end up with a game-high 136 yards on 19 carries, with a pair of 9-yard scoring runs.

“We just need to develop the toughness about us on our football team, and that’s why I’m doing that,” McHale said, in reference to trying to establish the running game (80 percent of the play calls against Warren County were runs). “That was the plan.”

After the Wildcats went up by 36 early in the second half, James Wood put together a 68-yard drive that saw Bishop get the call on seven straight carries. His seventh saw him bounce outside from the 9 and fight his way to the end zone to give the Colonels their first touchdown of the game.

The Colonels actually moved the ball well in the second half, but Cam Butler was intercepted twice inside the Warren County 30 to end drives. Butler actually played well at times, throwing for 88 yards off his eight completions.

A punt return of 33 yards by Brady Hepner helped set up James Wood’s last score. Starting from the Warren County 36, Cam Butler (8 of 11) made three straight completions for a total of 26 yards to provide first-and-goal. Bishop scored two plays later, and Butler found Dakota Orndorff with a two-point pass, to cut it to 41-20 with 7:41 left to play.

The Colonels totaled eight of their 12 first downs in the game and 187 total yards in the second half, continuing to work through their big deficit.

“We spot a team [a touchdown] the first play of the game — you can’t do that,” McHale said. “The one thing you can be proud of is they played hard. They had a lot of heart and I’m proud they didn’t quit.”

For Warren County, Yates ended up with a net of 135 yards on 15 carries. Only 12 yards came after the break. Newman added 86 rushing yard for the Wildcats, and Rutherford had 63 for the Colonels.