Gallery by Greg Barnett
Princeton – What was expected to be a wire-to-wire showdown between a pair of Class AAA rivals was anything but.
Princeton struck early and often with a balanced offensive attack, upending Beckley 56-7 on homecoming Friday at Hunnicutt Stadium.
Leaning heavily on the pass to this point in the season, the Tigers nearly broke even picking up 162 yards on the ground to complement the 180 gained through the air. It was all a part of a team effort that saw the Tigers play as effectively of defense where they intercepted four passes with three returned inside the Beckley 40 and the fourth returned for a touchdown.
“We expected it,” Princeton head coach Chris Pedigo said. “We didn’t play a good game last week but we played a tremendous football team in Lord Botetourt that did a lot of similar things to Beckley and Beckley’s a tremendous football team. We played a heckuva game tonight defensively and got off the field on early downs especially in the first half. We did a lot of good things there and got our offense set up in some good positions and I thought it was a good team effort.”
After three punts between the two teams to open the game, the Tigers quickly took control. A third-and-5 screen pass to junior receiver Dominick Collins ended with the electric playmaker scooting 64 yards to the end zone for the first score. Looking for its own third down magic on the ensuing drive, Beckley QB Jay Jones was intercepted by Princeton freshman Brad Mossor who returned the ball to the Beckley 10, setting up a 10-yard Brodee Rice rushing touchdown.
Bad turned to worse in the second quarter when a pass interference penalty on the Beckley defense kept a Princeton drive alive, eventually resulting in a 1-yard rushing score for Mossor to make it a 21-0 contest.
Beckley found some footing on Princeton’s ensuing drive when Rice busted a long run but was stripped by Tylai Kimble who returned the ball to the Princeton 36. Five straight Matthew Moore runs put the Flying Eagles on the Princeton 1 and Jay Jones finished the drive with a QB sneak for what was the visitors’ lone bright spot of the evening.
Two minutes later Marquel Lowe stepped into the spotlight, catching a swing pass from Princeton QB Grant Cochran and housing it for a 19-yard score.
Q2 2:25
Lowe 18 yard pass from Cochran.
Princeton 28, Beckley 7#wvprepfb pic.twitter.com/nBdSa4PDiH— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) October 14, 2022
Trailing 28-7 with under two minutes left in the half the Tigers buried the Flying Eagles. Jones was intercepted again, this time by Collins who returned the ball to the Beckley 17. Once again Rice was the immediate beneficiary, rumbling 17 yards for the fifth Princeton touchdown of the half.
“Turnovers and dumb penalties man,” Beckley head coach Street Sarrett said. “We just didn’t show up and got out-physicaled. They were tougher than us tonight and it showed.”
The second half was more of the same with Cochran tossing touchdowns to Collins and Mossor and the former putting an exclamation point on the game with a 30-yard interception return for a score – his third career interception against the Flying Eagles and second pick six against them.
Collins finished the night with four catches for 110 yards and two touchdowns to go along with his two interceptions.
“That kid’s earned everything he’s got,” Pedigo said. ” He should be getting scholarship offers coming. He’s got a couple DII but he keeps putting in the work. The kid’s a little undersized but he’s all heart and he’s got a lot of speed … I’m proud of him. I thought it was a team effort but we needed to make some big plays. We needed to get Brodee going, we needed to get Marquel going. Marquel caught a touchdown pass out of the backfield – his first one of the year – and we’ve been working on that it just happened to be an opportune time and we happened to hit on it.”
Rice and Lowe led the charge on the ground, combining for 158 yards. The 162 team rushing yards were the Tigers’ second highest output on the ground this season behind the 170 they accumulated against Oak Hill.
“We’ve been knocking at the door getting our run game going,” Pedigo said. “We’re no dummies. We know we’ve got to be able to run the football to be successful. We haven’t been successful the last two weeks running the football. The same conscious effort we’ve had the last two weeks – we were able to make some plays and we’ve got good running backs and our linemen did some good things. (Beckley) was mixing up the scheme, bringing blitzes inside and widening their guys. It was a little back and forth but I thought we made some big plays and by doing that’ll open up your passing game.”
Beckley found success on the ground with 242 yards on 51 carries but struggled to sustain drives. The loss is the second in a row for the Flying Eagles who are battling for a playoff spot, slotting in at No. 13 prior to Friday’s loss.
“Hey man we’ve got an off week coming up and two more games,” Sarrett said. “We finish out 7-3.”
Matthew Moore led Beckley with 131 yards on 25 carries while Cochran paced Princeton with 180 yards passing and four touchdown passes.
Princeton improves to 4-2 and will travel to No. 7 Bridgeport next week while Beckley drops to 5-3 will travel to Oak Hill on Oct. 28.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
Scoring Plays
Q1
P: Collins 64-yard pass from Cochran (Geso PAT), 5:03
P: Rice 10 rush (Geso PAT), 3:06
Q2
P: Mossor 1 rush (Gest PAT), 9:26
B: Jones 1 rush (Mollohan PAT), 4:49
P: Lowe 19 yard pass from Cochran (Geso PAT), 2:25
P: Rice 17 rush (Geso PAT), 1:17
Q3
P: Mossor 35-yard pass from Cochran (Geso PAT), 5:42
Q4
P: Collins 30 yard INT return (Geso PAT), 3:35
