Three-Peat in 6A Football!! Westfield Defeats Oscar Smith for 3rd Time; Kim Throws Three TD's, Asante Rushes for Other in 28-21 Win

HAMPTON -- – It didn’t take multiple overtimes, but in the end the result was the same. Westfield, behind three touchdown passes from Noah Kim, and 109 yards rushing and breakaway touchdown from Eugene Asante, won their third straight 6A championship, holding off a stingy Oscar Smith squad 27-20 on Sunday at Armstrong Stadium.

Like the other two games against Oscar Smith, this one did not appear to be decided until the game’s final minute when junior cornerback Taylor Morin intercepted Dominique Brooks in the end zone as the Tigers were attempting to tie the game.

However, Kim fumbled on third-and-three from midfield, and Oscar Smith’s Tyon Nicholes recovered to give the Tigers a last chance to tie or win the game.

The Tigers managed to gain 15 yards and move the ball to the Bulldog 36, but Saadiq Hinton picked off Brooks’ final pass with 27 seconds remaining and Westfield ran out the clock.

Taylor Morin almost got Westfield going with an early interception, but it was Oscar Smith who struck first. Cam’Ron Kelly, who started the game at quarterback, took the snap from his own 29 and zigzagged through the Bulldog defense for a 71-yard touchdown. Tyler Smith’s extra point gave the Tigers a 7-0 lead with 2:50 left in the opening stanza.

Keeping momentum was a problem for both teams.

“It was like a heavyweight fight with both teams taking big shots and throwing haymakers,” said Westfield coach Kyle Simmons. “It could have gone either way.”

Westfield struck back immediately, with a six-play, 67-yard drive capped by Kim’s 46-yard pass to a streaking Morin who took the pass down the left sideline for the final 15 yards and the game-tying touchdown. Russell Steinhilber’s extra point knotted the game at 7.

A costly fumble deep in Tiger territory by Kelly gave the Bulldogs the ball at Oscar Smith’s 22. Kim went to the air again, this time with a dump off pass to Joe Clancy, who rumbled in to the end zone for a 17-yard score, giving the visitors a 14-7 edge which held until intermission.

“It’s a simple play we run in practice,” said Clancy, a 220-pounder better known for his linebacker abilities. “The secondary keys on Bizzet (Woodley, 6-4 receiver) and I sneak in behind him.”

Kelly and Dominique Brooks alternated at QB during the first half, but both struggled to move the offense. The Tigers had 127 first-half rushing yards, but 71 came on Kelly’s touchdown run. Otherwise, the Bulldogs stymied the Smith passing attack as both signal callers combined on five of 13 passing for just 30 yards.

But the Bulldogs could do little when they had the ball. Kim’s 20-yard run was the only one of Westfield’s 16 first-half carries to net more than three yards. In all, the Dogs carried the ball 16 times in the first half for four yards. Kim, in spite of his two touchdown passes, completed only four of 11 for 81 yards.

The Tigers did a good job on Eugene Asante in the first half, holding the junior to 11 yards on seven carries. At halftime, Asante found inspiration from a group close to him.

“I was feeling down on myself, but my offensive linemen pulled me aside and said, we got your back, and we’re going to open up some holes.”

Their prophecy came true in the first minute. Asante finally broke free down the sideline and scored from the 44-yard line. Now with a 20-7 lead after the missed extra point, it looked like the Bulldogs had opened up a solid lead.

But the Tigers were not ready to fold. Brooks found Kelly, now playing receiver, in stride down the middle of the field for a 52-yard TD pass, and Azeez Attar’s extra point helped put the Tigers back in the thick of the game at 20-14.

On Westfield’s next drive, the Bulldogs failed to gain a first down and sent Russell Steinhilber out to punt. But Keshon Artis, the Ohio State commit, burst through the line to block the punt and send the ball bounding toward the sideline. Although Westfield’s Richie Aguilar fell on the loose ball, the Tigers took possession at the Bulldog 19. Five straight Wilson runs pushed the ball to the 1, and from there Brooks pushed into the end zone with a run similar to Cam Kelly’s winning touchdown plunge the previous week against Colonial Forge. This time, Azeer’s extra point gave Oscar Smith a razor-thin 21-20 lead with 4:37 left in the third quarter.

However, the Bulldogs had one more trick up their sleeve. With third-and-nine from the 12, Kim delivered a flare to Gavin Kiley on the right side. But Smith’s defense was caught off-guard and had no one in front of the speedy receiver who proceeded to outsprint the Tiger defense 88 yards to the end zone.

“It was an adjustment we made at halftime,” said Kiley. “We had (the play open) in the first half, but didn’t use it. On that down, we knew they would be keying on Eugene.”

Joe Clancy’s two-point conversion pass bumped the lead to 28-21, and opened the path for Westfield’s third consecutive state title.

Said Johnson, whose Bulldogs have gone 43-2 over the past three seasons, “You come into a game, and you want to find out if you can play with those guys. They’re (Oscar Smith) so athletic and so big. There were a few times when I had to talk myself off the ledge, and you feel like it’s slipping away. But that’s the way a game like this should be.”

Nolan Cockrill, a senior tight end and defensive end, who played in all three state championship games, could only smile when asked how the Class of 2018 represented itself.

“We have great feelings. The coaches bring us up through the system from the time we are freshmen. It’s pretty amazing, and the younger guys now have a lot to do.”

WESTFIELD 28, OSCAR SMITH 21

Westfield     (15-0)   7, 7, 14, 7  -- 28

Oscar Smith (12-3)   7, 0, 14, 0  – 21

1^st Quarter

OS – Cam’Ron Kelly 71 run (Tyler Smith kick)

W – Taylor Morin 46 pass from Noah Kim (Russell Steinhilber kick)

2^nd Quarter

W – Joe Clancy 17 pass from Kim (Steinhilber kick)

3^rd Quarter

W – Eugene Asante 44 run (kick failed)

OS – Kelly 52 pass from Dominique Brooks (Azeez Attar kick)

OS – Brooks 1 run (Azeer kick)

W – Gavin Kiley 88 pass from Kim (Clancy pass)

                      West       OS

First downs;      12, 14

Rushes-yards;  35-102, 40-207

Passing yards;   205, 97

Comp-att-int;   8-22-1, 7-19-4

Penalties-yards; 6-40, 10-77

Punts-avg;       7-30.7, 5-31.8

Fumbles-lost;  3-1, 1-1

Rushing: Westfield: Asante 19-109, Cirillo 3-10. Oscar Smith: C. Kelly 9-106, K. Wilson 22-101. Passing: W: Kim 8-21, 205 yds. 3 TD, OS: D. Brooks 5-13, 89 yds. TD, 3 INT, C. Kelly 2-5, 8 yds. INT. Receiving: W: Morin 5-82, Kiley 1-88, Woodley 1-18, Clancy 1-17. OS: Wilson 2-7, Kelly 2-52, Watson 1-18, Harrell 1-15.

Resilient Tuscarora Spots Highland Springs 33-Point Lead, Scores 27 of Final 34 Points, but Loses 5A Title 40-27

HAMPTON - For Coach Michael Burnett and his Tuscarora Huskies, it became quickly obvious that there was not going to be a comeback on Sunday.

The past three weeks had seen a series of fortunate breaks for the team from Leesburg. There was the 70-yard interception return by defensive back Alex Lee and last goal-line stand by the defense in a 14-12 second-round win over Broad Run, the missed extra point by Stone Bridge which turned out to be the difference in a 28-27 squeaker, and finally a game-winning 32-yard field goal by Max Skirkanich with time expiring, to seal a 20-17 win over fellow Cinderella team Stafford to bring the Huskies to this moment, and an opportunity to win their first state championship.

But anything that could go wrong for the Huskies on Sunday, did go wrong, and the game was seemingly over before halftime. When Highland Springs recovered a Husky fumble, and then Shy’re McKeiver burst through the line for a one-yard TD to give the Springers a 33-0 lead with 3:43 left before halftime, it appeared that the only question remaining was whether the clock would be running in the second half.

As it turned out, the Springers were two points short of activating the non-stop timer. And Tusky had one more fight left in them.

Resiliency had been a staple of the Tuscarora team all season. Even though Burnett admitted that, “the flow of a game is hard to change,” his Huskies did everything in their power to alter it.

With 2:13 left in the opening half, Justin Allen found Adam Thorne on a post route, and the senior receiver outran the Springer defense all the way to the end zone to complete a 62-yard touchdown. A minute later, the Huskies had the ball again and were driving toward the end zone when the fire almost dissolved.

Allen had a receiver open over the middle, but the potential ball catcher was shoved past the ball’s project path and intercepted by Billy Kemp who returned the ball past midfield and foiled the Huskies’ opportunity to get back into the game.

All appeared to be lost. But the Tuscarora defense kept the Springers from scoring, and as the second half got underway, Tusky dug deeper.

First, coach Burnett reached into his Sean Payton Super Bowl trick book and found the page with the onside kick to open second half of a championship game play. The kick was easily recovered by Highland Springs, but showed that the Huskies were not going to roll over.

They did not leave Armstrong Stadium with their collective tails between their legs; in fact, Tuscarora scored 27 of the game’s final 34 points to turn a 33-0 blowout into a respectable sounding 40-27 defeat in Sunday’s 5A state final.

When it was all over, several of their key players had something to say about the team’s mental toughness and resiliency.

“We’ve been in bad situations,” said tight end Kyle Jenkins. Jenkins, whose three touchdowns provided most of the offense in the Stone Bridge win, caught six balls for 39 yards and a seven-yard score in the game’s last minute. “But we learned to stay calm and execute.”

“This team has so much heart,” added quarterback Justin Allen. Allen, who was scrambling for his life on many plays, finished the day completing 17 of 30 passes for 234 yards and three touchdowns. When we lost those two games (28-12 to Broad Run and 14-13 to Stone Bridge), we told ourselves, we don’t want to lose to those teams again.” They didn’t.

Defensive back Alex Lee focused on the positive reinforcement of his teammates. “We kept our heads up and looked past the bad things. Then, we went out and worked hard in practice.”

Tuscarora was not the most likely choice to be representing the 5A North teams at Armstrong Stadium on Sunday. Stone Bridge was the prohibitive favorite, with Broad Run just half a step behind. North Stafford looked to be a beast of a team through November, and their ouster by Brooke Point raised a few eyebrows, while the rest were raised when the Black Hawks lost to Stafford, a team that went 3-7 last season.

Burnett summed up his season and his players perfectly when all was said and done.

“I think of my players like I think of my own children. You want your children to do well and keep their heads up.”

He used the first Broad Run game as their turning point. “I told the guys after that game that we are our own worst enemy. Once we embraced that idea, things turned around.”

Tuscarora did not make it to Hampton with the hope of walking away with the second-place trophy. Still, their 12-3 record, finalized by the journey to the state final is a testament. Burnett called it a testament to the seniors, and it probably is. The Huskies are returning Allen and Leron West and several other players who contributed mightily to this season’s cause. If they can retain a hard head and a short memory, the Huskies 2018 ride could be just as long and inspiring.