Re: High School Football 2020
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WaPost
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Date: May 04, 2021 06:05AM
South County football can’t keep up with Oscar Smith in Class 6 championship game rematch
Michael Errigo
May 1, 2021 at 6:32 p.m. EDT
CHESAPEAKE, VA — It can be hard for football players to put themselves in their opponents’ shoes. They scout, study and plan for a team, but they can never truly understand their foes until the game begins.
The South County Stallions had been hungry to play Saturday’s Virginia Class 6 championship game for a long time. This was their ultimate goal for well over a year. Through an extended of fseason, through nine games of buildup, through a three-hour bus ride south, they eagerly awaited a chance to defend the state title they won in December 2019.
It was hard to imagine their opponent would not only match that desire but blow it away.
Oscar Smith, a longtime power here in the southern half of the state, was on the losing end of that Stallions victory in 2019. The Tigers also spent the past 17 months dying to play this game. And from the opening whistle Saturday, they showed just how much by steamrolling the Stallions, 62-21.
“They wanted it more,” Stallions senior safety Samuel Dankah said. “And that’s what football comes down to. That’s what it’s all about, play after play. Who wants it? And they did.”
The loss snaps a 24-game winning streak the Stallions had been building since the beginning of last season. The 62 points tied for the most the 16-year-old program has allowed.
While last season’s championship game, a gritty 14-13 win for South County, was a tight defensive battle, Saturday’s contest quickly became a sprawling shootout. Playing in front of a limited home crowd boosted by additional fans sitting just outside the stadium’s fence line, the Tigers came out firing. They didn’t blink when South County scored on a 71-yard pass on its first possession. Instead, they put up 28 points in the first eight minutes of the first quarter.
The Stallions’ defense seemed unable to get off the field, and quarterback Charlie Miska’s early turnover troubles persisted. The Tigers’ defense had five interceptions, and their offense scored nine touchdowns. Oscar Smith senior quarterback Ethan Vasko, who struggled against the Stallions in 2019, rushed for three touchdowns and passed for two.
“There wasn’t a whole lot different from [last year] in terms of our approach and how we prepared and what we expected to see,” said Tynan Rolander, who took over as South County’s coach this season after serving as an assistant. ”And we got every bit of what we expected to see from them. … But the preparation going into this game was as good as we could have gotten given the circumstances.”
Any and all momentum built by the Stallions (9-1), mostly on two touchdown catches by senior Dillon Dunn, was quickly quashed by the Tigers (9-0). They were always ready to answer, always ready to gash the defense with another big play.
After Oscar Smith pushed its lead back up to three touchdowns in the second quarter, South County linebacker Dorian Mitchell came off the field and threw his helmet down. Mitchell, the hero of last week’s semifinal with a game-clinching interception, collapsed to the grass near the 10-yard line in frustration. He lay there until the referee told him to get up and rejoin his team inside the allotted sideline area.
“It’s tough,” Rolander said. “But to be able to play in this game given the circumstances we were in was a blessing. Just being able to come down here … means we had a hell of a season.”