By Jeffery Gibert
West Potomac High School Senior, DigitalSports Intern
As rained poured throughout the whole game, No. 5 West Potomac edged visiting Hayfield, 17-7, on Friday. The Wolverines were undefeated coming into the game and looking to improve to 5-0 before their big match-up against No. 6 West Springfield next week.
“All four days, we’ve got to practice hard,” said West Potomac senior Sammy Barrios. “It’s going to be the biggest game of the year.”
On paper, it looked as though the Wolverines would roll over the 1-3 Hawks on Friday. But without senior captain Aaron Loney, the game instead proved a real battle.
After holding West Potomac to three-and-out on its opening possession, Hayfield took little time to jump on the scoreboard with a three-yard touchdown run by junior Fabian Fells, who, ironically, just recently transferred to Hayfield from West Potomac. Fells’ touchdown was set up by a 66 yard run by junior Rayshawn Rigans, who later broke another long, 63-yard run.
The game went back-and-forth for the rest of the first half with the Hawks still leading, 7-0, at half time.
The second half — other than the rain — proved a different story. West Potomac controlled the tempo and got moving offensively while shutting out the Hawks on defense.
“I think the defense played good because we held them to 7 points after
they scored on their opening drive,” Wolverine senior Chris Montgomery said. “And then had, like, three or four red zone
trips after that.”
West Potomac evened the score late in the third quarter when senior quarterback Cole Walter threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to senior Charles Johnson. The touchdown came right after Walter completed a pass for 28 of his
134 total passing yards to junior Will Rosenkranz, who finished the night with four receptions for
54 yards.
“It felt great,” Johnson said of hauling in the game-tying score. “It lifted us up.”
On the ensuing kickoff, Hayfield fumbled the ball right back to the Wolverines, but West Potomac could not capitalize.
In the fourth quarter, though, the Wolverines began to pull away. With 7 minutes, 58 seconds left in the game senior Daniel Baker (65 yards rushing) scored on 4th-and-Goal from the 1 yard line just moments after Hayfield had stuffed him and the Wolverines for no gain on the three previous plays.
“I knew our team had it in us after we talked at half time,” Baker said.
Later in the quarter, with about 4:20 left, West Potomac senior standout wide receiver Kristian Rodriguez was “hit sticked” by Hayfield senior Lolo Newsome, who had an incredible game making tackles all over the field. The Wolverines then got a late field goal to put the Hawks away.
West Potomac senior running back Derrick Barber also had a good night with 56 yards rushing.
“The kids have a lot of character,” Wolverines’ Coach Eric Henderson said when asked what his teams’ comeback win in the wet weather conditions meant to him. “But give Hayfield credit. They have a lot of good athletes … It’s hard to win a game when we struggle like we have the last two weeks, but we’re realizing that we can win those tough games.”
About the sloppy playing conditions, Wolverine senior lineman Grady O’Hagan replied, “It’s always a challenge, man, but we’re built to play in it.”
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