MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — John Kelley hasn’t hesitated to call senior Logan Raber his go-to player this season. Following the Hawks’ 18-7 victory on Friday against John Marshall, Kelley doubled down on that sentiment.
“We’re going to go as far as Logan takes us,” Kelley said. “He’s our leader.”
While Raber churned out 39 yards rushing on 15 carries on a night when the Hawks’ offense was limited to just 131 total yards, it was the linebacker’s play on defense that stood out.
“He probably had 15 tackles for us,” Kelley said. None bigger than the Hawks’ stop on the first play in the fourth quarter. Trailing, 18-7, the Monarchs had driven to the UHS 5-yard line and faced a fourth-and-two situation. John Marshall elected to hand the ball off to junior running back Derrick Derrow, who was stuffed for no gain, handing the ball back to the UHS offense.
“That was probably our biggest defensive play of the night,” Kelley said. “It was a typical UHS defense. We bent but didn’t break.”
It was one of many plays turned in by the Hawks’ defense, including two interceptions. Colin McBee recorded the first interception and returned it 70 yards to give UHS a 6-0 lead. Drew Burton also added an interception with 7:57 left in the fourth quarter. University High’s special teams also scored a touchdown, after linebacker Donald Brandel recovered a fumbled punt in the end zone with 4:13 remaining in the third quarter for the final score of the game.
“Our defense accomplished a lot tonight,” McBee said. “We’re mostly sophomore and juniors on defense, so we’re pretty young. To come out here and force some turnovers and get a big stop on fourth down, those were all big for us.”
Morgantown taking notes from Singer
As hard as they may have tried, Morgantown football didn’t have an answer for Parkersburg quarterback Bryson Singer on Friday. The sophomore paced the Big Reds both through the air and on the ground, tallying 257 all-purpose yards. The performance poses questions about how well MHS is prepared to handle an athletic, dual-threat quarterback.
“We work on tackling — every day in practice we do tackling circuits. But that kid is a special football player,” MHS coach Matt Lacy said.
Singer exposed holes in the middle of the secondary for big plays through the air, needing just four completions to pass the 100-yard mark for the evening. The deep threat allowed Singer and the PHS running back stable to bloom, which helped wear down MHS and chew clock late in the game.
The MHS defense managed to hold the Big Reds scoreless in the second half, outscoring PHS 14-0, but Singer still managed 100-plus on the ground in the final 24 minutes. Senior defensive lineman Marcellus Marshall believes if his team can adjust their play to reflect their second-half performance, they will be fine as the season goes on.
The Mohigans will look to continue to improve those aspects of their game as they travel to Bridgeport for a Week 2 contest against a similar offense, led by returning senior quarterback Devin Vandergrift, who led the Indians to a Class AA State Semifinal appearance last fall.
Bridgeport head coach John Cole expressed an interest to run to a quarterback-powered run game after losing all-time leading rusher Jake Bowen. Vandergrift went 5-6 for 56 yards through the air as Bridgeport ran through Lewis County 28-0 on Friday.
