Lindside – After James Monroe suffered its first regular season loss in nearly two years last week at Greenbrier West, bouncing back instead of snowballing was the goal.
The Mavericks did the former in resounding fashion.
James Monroe held Midland Trail to just 33 yards of total offense, intercepting three passes in a 49-0 victory over the Patriots in Lindside Friday.
“We preached to them all week long about looking at the West game as a wakeup call,” James Monroe head coach John Mustain said. “Not taking a thing away from Greenbrier West at all because they have a quality program and a quality team but we feel like we made a lot of mistakes. We got behind the chains a lot because of penalties and again key reads defensively weren’t quite there.”
The dominant showing from the Mavs in Friday’s rebound effort was further reinforced by the fact Trail never made it past the 50 and its longest drive – a nine-play series – netted just five yards.
“They’re bigger and stronger and we knew we couldn’t go toe-to-toe with them,” Trail head coach Jeremy Moore said. “We lost that game in December. They were in the weight room and we weren’t obviously. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot. When you can’t run the ball it handicaps you and then we couldn’t get out of our own way with the negative plays and penalties. It was sloppy football.”
The Mavericks exerted their will on the offensive side of the ball as well all evening, scoring touchdowns on six of their 10 drives, stringing together three consecutive scoring drives after punting on their opening possession.
Its started with a 34-yard pass to Chaz Boggs on the Mavs’ second drive of the game that set up a 3-yard scoring plunge by Brock Parker.
Boggs had his number called early in the second quarter when Dowdy found him for a nine-yard strike to make it 14-0.
Dowdy proved to be another thorn in Trail’s side, extending plays with his legs and finding receivers on third down to keep three separate drives alive.
“I think we’re learning as a coaching staff too,” Mustian said. “We don’t have deep threat – Chaz is a fairly decent deep threat but last year we had him, Braydie Carr and Eli (Allen). So we’re not really a much a deep threat and I think we’re starting to really understand that and start looking for stuff underneath and it’s really making a big difference.”
Hoping to slash the deficit, Trail took to the air where it struggled as much as it did on the ground. Cooper Ridgeway intercepted a Thad Brown pass over the middle at the Trail 20 and four plays later found the end zone. He capped the half with his second score of the night when Dowdy found him for a 6-yard touchdown pass just before the end of the half.
After punting on their opening drive of the second half the Mavericks strung together a pair of touchdown drives capped by Ridgeway and Boggs with a 30-yard interception return courtesy of Parker accounting for the final points late in the fourth.
“The (defense) was the one thing we wanted to see step up tonight and they really did,” Mustain said. “We got a lot of young kids there in the back seven still learning the system and where they’re supposed to be lined up and they did a much better job today. Getting lined up is step one but I’m really tickled with the way they played today.”
Ridgeway finished with 143 yards from scrimmage with three touchdowns while Boggs added 66 and two, respectively.
Dowdy completed 12 of 16 passing attempts for 125 yards and three scores while Ridgeway, Shane Arthur and Parker all secured an interception each.
Trail drops to 4-4 and will travel to Greenbrier West in two weeks while James Monroe improves to 5-1 and will close the regular season with three consecutive Class AA opponents beginning with Liberty next week.
Email: Tylerjackson@lootpress.com
MT: 0 0 0 0 – 0
JM: 7 21 14 7 – 49
Rushing
MT: Will McGraw 4-20, Jayden Roop 6-4, Moore 1-(-3), Thad Brown 6-(-23), Jet Ford 1-7; JM: Cooper Ridgeway 13-106-1, Chaz Boggs 3-10, Layton Dowdy 3-(-3), Brock Parker 6-36-1, Bailey Ridgeway 1-4
Passing
MT: Thad Brown 6-16-28-0-3; JM: Dowdy 12-16-125-3-0, Mann – 1-1-2-1-0
Receiving
MT: Preston Compton 5-27, Will McGraw 1-1; JM: Mann 1-11, Boggs 3-56-2, B. Ridgeway 2-18, C. Ridgeway 7-37-2, Parker 1-5
