BLACKSVILLE — Maddox Bowen is listed at 5-foot-10 and 135 pounds, but Weirton Madonna football coach John McCune admits that’s embellished a little bit.
“The weight is right, but he’s probably more like 5-8,” McCune said.
A quarterback wrapped up in the body of a second-string soccer player, Bowen made nothing but big plays Friday night for the Blue Dons.
The freshman threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns and also added a rushing TD to lead Madonna to a 28-8 victory against Clay-Battelle.
“Even though he’s just a freshman, we already have a lot of faith in him,” McCune continued. “You can ask the older guys on our team, they already think of him as a leader.”
Bowen threw two touchdowns in the first quarter — one of them a 44-yarder to Koleton Grishkevich — to get Madonna (2-0) a quick 14-0 lead.
He added a 2-yard touchdown run with 58 seconds left in the second quarter on what was a busted play.
He turned to the right to hand the ball off, but no one was there. Bowen still had enough wits about him to scramble his way into the end zone.
“Honestly, we couldn’t have a better guy back there for us,” McCune said. “The best way to put it is he’s a football junkie.
“You look at him and you probably don’t see a football player, but that kid loves the game so much and he puts in a ton of work.”
On the other side, Clay-Battelle (1-1) was sluggish on offense and was unable to get its running game going.
The Cee-Bees were held to just 82 yards rushing and had just 26 yards on the ground at the half.
“That was a big deal,” C-B head coach Aaron LaPoe said. “We came into the game believing we could run the ball. We were bigger up front. We worked on running the ball all week, so that was very disappointing.”
Clay-Battelle’s offense was led through the air by quarterback Braden Ponceroff, who completed 11 of 25 for 221 yards. He threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Josiah Morgan with 4:42 remaining in the game, but by then the Blue Dons were already in control.
Bowen was the reason.
He was both efficient — completing 12 of 20 attempts — and electric with four completions that went for at least 34 yards.
He also did some damage on the ground, taking some read-option keepers for solid gains, and also scrambled for another first down after picking up a bad snap and then scrambling for a 6-yard gain on fourth-and-five.
He finished with 34 yards on the ground.
“He definitely made some plays for them and we missed a lot of tackles,” LaPoe said. “We took some bad angles, but their quarterback had some big plays.”
Grishkevich finished with 122 yards receiving and a TD on five grabs, while Madonna running back Wesley Molish added 74 yards rushing and a TD on 10 carries.
Morgan had three catches for 98 yards for the Cee-Bees.
“I think Maddox is going to be one of those guys you’ll want to keep an eye on as he develops through his career,” McCune said. “He already has such good field awareness. We are very happy to have him.”
Box score
Madonna 14 6 0 8—28
Clay-Battelle 0 0 0 8—8
INDIVIDUAL SCORING
Mad—Andre Crossland 3 pass from Maddox Bowen (KJ Ward kick)
Mad—Koleton Grishkevich 44 pass from Bowen (Ward kick)
Mad—Bowen 2 run (kick failed)
C-B—Josiah Morgan 29 pass from Bradern Ponceroff (Caleb Snodgrass run)
Mad—Wesley Molish 1 run (Molish run)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Clay-Battelle—Maverick Gum 15-56, Snodgrass 8-38, TJ Barr 3-2, Ponceroff 2-(-14). Madonna—Molish 10-74 TD, Bowen 10-34 TD, Ward 4-43, Crossland 1-11, Conner Carte 2-2, Matthew Greer 3-8, Team 2-(-4).
PASSING: Clay-Battelle—Ponceroff 11-25-1 221 1TD. Madonna—Bowen 12-20-1 231 2TD.
RECEIVING: Clay-Battelle—Morgan 3-98 TD, Landon Savage 4-24, Damion Toothman 1-23, Snodgrass 2-15, Gum 1-1. Madonna—Grishkevich 5-122 TD, Ward 3-57, Crossland 2-10 TD, Greer 1-35, Carte 1-7.
