By Tom Bragg, For Lootpress.com
When Class AAA No. 18 Winfield lost 26-14 at Wayne on September 20, it was a gut-check moment for the Generals.
The team was 2-2 at that point and without the services of standout senior Toby Laughery – a strong and experienced player on both sides of the ball who was injured early an ruled out for the remainder of the season.
Head coach Eddie Smolder said he called his upperclassmen together before his team took on Logan on September 27. The message was clear: step up now before it’s too late.
“We told them, ‘If you guys want to be remembered for all the work you’ve done, it’s time to start balling out now.,’” Smolder said. “It’s now or never. In the Logan game we started hitting our stride – they’re athletic and young, but really good – and we played really well.”
Winfield beat Logan 47-6 that night before falling 55-28 to current Class AAA No. 2 Princeton 55-28. Last week, the Generals took down an outmanned Sissonville team 55-6 to regain a bit of momentum coming into Friday’s visit to high-flying Class AAA No. 7 Nitro.
The Wildcats (6-1) haven’t lost since Herbert Hoover escaped Underwood Field with a 13-7 overtime win on September 13. Since that game, Nitro has scored 190 point in four games – an average of 47.5 points per game.
Nitro senior quarterback Josh Moody leads the attack with 2,221 passing yards (ranked No. 2 in the state) to go with 22 touchdowns and just five interceptions. The Wildcats are far from one-dimensional, however, with Eli Littlejohn emerging as one of the Kanawha Valley’s top running backs this season with 798 yards on 110 carries and 13 touchdowns.
Smolder said he’s more worried about his own them rather that what someone else can do, and he likes the shape of things on his defense currently, led by new defensive coordinator Chris Massey – a former standout at Marshall who spent 10 seasons in the NFL with the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears.
“We’ve only got two starters that are playing that played last year on defense, so we’re really inexperienced and really young.” Smolder said. “They’re really coachable right now. Coach [Chris] Massey is really doing a good job with the assistant coaches. They really believe in him. He’s the new defensive coordinator, and obviously he’s a former NFL player and a great assistant coach, but when you step into that role it’s a little bit different.”
Nitro’s defense, meanwhile, has been among the best in Class AAA this season. The Wildcats have allowed 80 points in seven games, and are one of just four teams in the classification – along with No. 1 Fairmont Senior, No. 2 Princeton and No. 3 Bridgeport – to allow fewer than 100 points so far this season.
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Sherman (6-1) continues its march toward to Class A state playoffs this week on the road in Rainelle at Greenbrier West (4-4).
The Tide, No. 7 in this week’s Class A playoff ratings, have been led by a strong running game with juniors Trey Lester (582 yards) and Dawson Green (341 yards) combining for nearly 1,000 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns this season.
Sherman comes into Friday’s contest on an extremely short week. The Tide beat Boone County rival Van 42-6 last Friday and on Monday took down Mount View 47-25 in a makeup of a game postponed several weeks ago by Hurricane Helene.
In the win against Mount View, Lester led the way with 184 rushing yards on 10 carries with three touchdowns while Green picked up 106 yards on the ground and scored once.
The Cavaliers come into Friday’s game looking to end a three-game losing streak after dropping consecutive contests to Fort Frye (Oh.), James Monroe and Petersburg.
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Herbert Hoover found itself in a dogfight, no pun intended, last week on the road at Ripley — tied 21-21at halftime after two turnovers late in the second quarter turned into 14 points for the host Vikings.
The Huskies regained their footing in the second half, however, and pulled away for a 56-28 win and hit a few milestones in the process.
– Senior quarterback Dane Hatfield passed 1,000 rushing yards for the season.
– Hoover, which only has non-conference games against Elkins, Hedgesville and Weir remaining on the schedule, clinched the Cardinal Conference championship. It is the sixth conference title in program history to go with trophies from 1977 (Kanawha Valley Conference), 1995 (Mountain State Athletic Conference), 1996 (MSAC), 2002 (Cardinal) and 2021 (Cardinal).
– The Huskies also unofficially punched their ticket for the postseason last week.
Hoover hosts Elkins on Friday in Elkview for its final home game of the regular season before finishing with long road trips at Hedgesville and at Weir.
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Other Kanawha, Putnam and Boone games on this week’s schedule:
– Hurricane (5-2) at Riverside (1-6)
– Capital (2-5) at Huntington (6-1)
– Cabell Midland (2-5) at South Charleston (0-7)
– St. Albans (2-5) at Parkersburg (2-5)
– Poca (3-4) at Clay County (4-3)
– Richwood (0-6) at Buffalo (3-5)
– Scott (5-2) at Man (3-4)
