By Eric Avissar
Robinson High School Senior, DigitalSports Intern
With Chantilly and Robinson facing off for the first time since the Rams upset the Chargers in last year’s playoffs, an entirely new stage was set Friday night. This time, the big showdown was at Robinson, and while there may not have been playoff elimination at stake, the game was chosen by the Great American Rivalry Series as a national spotlight game.
And when push came to shove, it was Chantilly senior standout running back Torrian Pace who pushed the piles the furthest, amassing 29 carries for a whopping 234 yards and 4 touchdowns as Chantilly defeated Robinson, 36-20.
Pace’s performance made picking the game’s Most Valuable Player an easy selection for the Great American Rivalry Series, in part because Chantilly also failed to complete a pass the entire game.
“We had a simple game plan tonight; there wasn’t much to it,” said Pace, whose face was littered with green grass blades after the game. “All we really wanted to do was play our physical football, and we didn’t want to make the kinds of mistakes that have hurt us earlier this season.”
Instead of making its own mistakes, Chantilly was able to capitalize on an early Robinson error, forcing a safety on the opening drive of the game after a miscue on the opening return put the Rams back on their own 3-yard line.
Pace proved to be a sleeping giant early, playing relatively quiet until running for a 5-yard touchdown with over nine minutes left in the second quarter. The Chargers actually kept the ball out of Pace’s hands for the vast majority of the first quarter, with senior Kevin McGrath taking the bulk of the early carries. McGrath finished with 106 yards of his own on 14 carries.
But after scoring the 5-yard touchdown run that erased the Rams’ only lead of the night at 6-2, Pace broke a run from outside that transitioned from a quick burst to a full-sprint footrace 80 yards for a touchdown, giving the Chargers a 16-6 lead.
“I had to spring as hard as I could to make it to the outside,” Pace said. “I just really wanted to score like that because people sometimes question my speed.”
With only a three-point lead going into the locker room at half time, Chantilly further distanced themselves from the Rams on a big run with the first play from scrimmage in the second half. Finding room to run in the open field, McGrath scampered 63 yards down field to set up a punishing Pace touchdown. The result was a 22-13 lead that the Chargers refused to relinquished for the rest of the game.
The closest the Rams came back was when senior quarterback Timmy Meier hooked up with senior running back Wynton Fox for a 65-yard touchdown pass, making the score 22-20. But Robinson was hampered by conservative play-calling that included a run on 3rd-and-14 along with a quarterback keeper run on 4th-and-4 that was stopped for a loss in the second half of play.
Chantilly’s decision to only throw the ball twice the entire game — one incompletion and one interception by Rams’ senior Paul Moline — never came back to haunt them, as the last two scores of the night came on a Pace 54-yard scamper into the end zone and a 1-yard punch-in by McGrath.
The Rams were led by senior running back Alex Murray, who ran for 135 yards on 22 carries. Meier threw for 2 touchdowns for 117 yards, along with two interceptions, one of which was thrown to junior John DiAmico with less than three minutes left in the game.
Robinson (3-3 overall, 1-2 Concorde District) will travel to Oakton next week in what is considered to seniors Xavier Duncan and Moline as, “A must win game in order to make the playoffs,” while Chantilly (5-2, 2-2) hosts Fairfax for their Homecoming game.
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