IWA advances to state title game
Published 5:32 pm Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Isle of Wight Academy was all business Monday night. The undefeated Chargers scored three touchdowns in the first five minutes of the game to down Fuqua School 42-12 in the semifinals of the Virginia Independent Schools Division III football playoffs.
IWA (10-0) advances to the state championship game for the fourth time in five years and will host Virginia Commonwealth Conference rival Blessed Sacrament Huguenot at 7 p.m. on Saturday. BSH defeated North Cross 17-15 Friday night in the other semifinal game. Isle of Wight downed Blessed Sacrament 23-14 during the regular season.
The Chargers had defeated Fuqua 41-8 in the regular season, and Monday night was not much different. IWA took the opening kickoff and marched 54 yards in four plays. After a pair of 11-yard runs by Charles Keyt and Heath Price, quarterback Daniel Brown broke loose and dodged defenders for a 24-yard touchdown run at the 10:27 mark of the first quarter. Justin Vick booted the extra point for a 7-0 lead.
Fuqua went three and out on its first possession, and the Chargers were poised to strike again. Starting at the Fuqua 42, Price ran 17 yards, Keyt bolted 13 yards, and Price waltzed in the end zone with a 3-yard run at 7:25. Vick upped the lead to 14-0.
IWA scored just 10 seconds later on a defensive play. John Hibbard picked off a Charles Williams pass and ran 20 yards for a touchdown. Vick put the Chargers up 21-0 with less than five minutes gone in the game.
Isle of Wight’s defense took over and held Fuqua to just 1 yard of total offense in the first half. Meanwhile the Chargers added two more scores, including a 40-yard touchdown run by Brown and a 7-yard touchdown run by Keyt to put IWA up 35-0 up at the half.
The rest of the contest was played with a running clock and IWA’s second-string offense and defense.
The Chargers rolled up 249 yards offense in the first half, led by Price’s 103 yards. Price finished the game with 153 yards on 17 carries. Brown finished the game with 84 yards rushing on five carries and threw just one pass the entire game. Keyt finished the game with 73 yards on nine carries.
IWA head coach Dale Chapman said his team really wanted to play the game Friday night after sitting idle with a bye week the last week of the season. The game was postponed to due to a wet field from several days of rain.
“We wanted to play it bad Friday. We just had so much adversity coming off an open week and getting psyched up to play and then couldn’t play,” Chapman said. “The guys did what we asked them to do mentally and they played a great game.”
Chapman said the Chargers worked on the basics.
“We did the basics and were successful with that. It was our mode of operation and it worked for us. We played this team already this year and pretty much knew what we were up against and what we had to stop,” Chapman said. “We worked hard this week to prepare for this. They guys stepped up and played like they were supposed to.”
With Blessed Sacrament playing on Friday night and IWA playing Monday, Chapman said the Chargers will have a short week to prepare.
“It is going to put us at a disadvantage going on four days and have to play a state championship caliber game,” he said.