By Ryan Pritt, HD Media
HURRICANE — Class AAA No. 6 Hurricane piled up 656 yards, 25 first downs and 49 points against a top-11 team on Friday night and coach Donnie Mays said that, for the most part, his offense was sloppy in the first half.
And with a blocked field goal, a couple of drops and some missed opportunities, he wasn’t wrong.
But the speedy, athletic Redskins defense continued its dominant ways, and when the offense cleaned up the miscues, Hurricane took off.
Jeremiah Riffle rumbled for 257 yards and a touchdown, Noah Vellaithambi threw four touchdown passes and the host Redskins (5-1) ran away with a 49-13 win over No. 11 Princeton on homecoming on Friday night.
Hurricane may have had some early miscues, keeping things close for a while, but outside of two long touchdown passes from Grant Cochran to Dominick Collins, the Redskins kept the Tigers (3-2) in check, outrushing Princeton 412-28 and forcing seven punts.
“They get to the ball and they force turnovers and they’re led by our safeties and our D-line,” Mays said. “When you can be disruptive in the interior you can force things to bounce and that kind of plays into who we are because we’re pretty fast over the top.”
Indeed, save for the two scoring throws, both of which came on swing passes that went for 58 and 74 yards respectively, Princeton’s repeated attempts to swing the ball wide were stuffed by Hurricane’s speed up front and in the back end. Those two scoring tosses accounted for 132 of Princeton’s 240 total yards.
Meanwhile, when Hurricane had to have something, it leaned on Riffle, who galloped through the Tigers defense all evening, notching his only touchdown on a 37-yard jaunt late in the third quarter to make the score 35-7. By the time Tyshawn Dues hauled in his second touchdown pass, one of 15 yards from Vellaithambi early in the fourth quarter, a running clock was instituted.
Riffle’s big night put him over 1,000 yards already this season.
“In the beginning I wasn’t seeing much but I started to pick it up a little bit and the line started giving me holes,” Riffle said. “They’re just good blocks.”
All three members of Hurricane’s backfield stable — Riffle, Mondrell Dean and Elijah Rivera — found the end zone, with Dean and Rivera combining for 135 yards on 21 carries. Vellaithambi hit on 11 of 22 passes for 244 yards and scoring throws of 73, 9, 65 and 15 yards. LaRon Hall-Dues and Heath Montgomery also caught touchdown passes.
The win set up a showdown with rival Cabell Midland next week after the Knights knocked off No. 1 Spring Valley on Friday. Despite enjoying the homecoming victory, it didn’t take long for the Redskins to turn their attention ahead.
“That’ll be a real big game,” Mays said. “Midland is well coached, they always are and they’re a good football team. The old saying, ‘That’s why you play the game.’ That’ll be a packed house I’d say.”
“I feel like we’ve improved [since a loss to] Spring Valley,” Riffle added. “I’m confident that we can beat Cabell Midland. I feel like our defense will pick it up, our quarterback will throw, our wide receivers will catch, I’ll run and our linemen will do their part. I don’t think we’re afraid of Cabell Midland is what I’m trying to say.”
Cochran finished 15 for 30 for 199 yards with Collins hauling in 10 of those passes for 171 markers. Dues led Hurricane in receiving yards (94) and receptions with Lucas Rippatoe catching three passes for 70 yards.
Hurricane 49, Princeton 13
Princeton;0;7;0;6;–;13
Hurricane;7;14;14;14;–;49
First quarter
H – Dues 73 pass from Vellaithambi (Johnson kick), 9:08
Second quarter
H – Dean 12 run (Johnson kick), 10:29
P – Collins 58 pass from Cochran (Geso kick), 3:16
H – Hall-Dues 9 pass from Vellaithambi (Johnson kick), 0:45.9
Third quarter
H – Montgomery 65 pass from Vellaithambi (Johnson kick), 5:13
H – Riffle 37 run (Johnson kick), 3:01
Fourth quarter
H – Dues 15 pass from Vellaithambi (Johnson kick), 11:08
P – Collins 74 pass from Cochran (kick blocked), 8:44
H – Rivera 2 run (Johnson kick), 1:50
Team statistics
P-H
First downs;;11;25
Rushes-yards;;21-28;47-412
Passing yards;;212;244
Passes;;16-31-0;11-22-1
Total yards;;240;656
Fumbles-lost;;1-1;0-0
Penalties-yards;;4-30;8-65
Punts-average;;7-33.7;1-51
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
RUSHING – P: Lowe 13-30, Cochran 3-(minus-17), Rice 2-11, Team 1-3, Dillon 1-2, Collins 1-(minus-1). H: Riffle 24-257, Rivera 15-84, Dean 6-51, Vellaithambi 2-20.
PASSING – P: Cochran 15-30-0-199, Digiacomo 1-1-0-13. H: Vellaithambi 11-22-1-244.
RECEIVING – P: Collins 10-171, Mossor 3-26, Fleming 1-13, Rice 1-6, Edwards 1-(minus-4). H: Dues 4-94, Rippatoe 3-70, Hall-Dues 2-10, Montgomery 1-65, Murrell 1-5.