Amherst County ‘Jets’ its way past GW

DANVILLE — The George Washington Eagles are predicated on speed and quickness, especially on the ends as many opposing ball carriers fail to reach the outside on runs.

For Amherst County, a play called “69 Jet” proved to be a good solution to that problem.

Mario Vaughan rushed for 121 yards and two touchdowns, and Jamar Glover added 108 yards on the ground as Amherst County defeated George Washington 34-13 on Friday night.

The Lancers (2-1) pounded out 363 total yards on the ground, most of which came on “69 Jet” — a receiver going in motion and taking the handoff while already carrying a full head of steam.

Those plays and sweeps resulted in positive yardage nearly every attempt, including two long touchdown runs by Vaughan.

“I give all my credit to the offensive line. They did so good that when I made my cut, there was nobody there left, it just allowed me to run,” said Vaughan. “We really outran. They have a lot of speed on D, so we just ran as hard as we could to get outside.”

While the Lancers were pounding away, so were the Eagles (0-2), churning out 333 yards rushing of their own, including 193 from senior back David Wilson, most of which came on 80- and 67-yard touchdown runs.

“We added some new plays in there, and I liked them,” said Wilson, who carried the ball only 18 times while nursing a left ankle injury.

Although Wilson enjoyed the new plays, the youth of the team showed as the Eagles committed five penalties for 45 yards. Two of those penalties — false starts by the offense while the Eagles were going for it on fourth-and-short — killed chances of continuing drives and allowing the offense more opportunities to attack the Lancer defense.

“The timing of it was probably the most disappointing thing,” George Washington coach Dan Newell said. “It never seemed to happen unless it was something really, really important.

“When we had a chance for convertible third downs, where we felt that we had a play, where we were willing to go for it on fourth down, but we needed a few yards on third and then we end up getting a penalty. The situation was what made it tough on us, not the fact that they did it.”

What also made things tough on the Eagles were two critical drives that swung the complexion of the game in favor of Amherst.

Following Wilson’s second touchdown, which cut the Lancer lead to 19-13 with less than six minutes left in the third, Amherst went on a 15-play, 80-yard drive that consumed 7 minutes and 13 seconds and ended in a Devonte Brown four-yard score that made it 27-13 after the two-point conversion.

The Eagles did not give up, using runs from Wilson and Tahron Goods to drive to the Lancers’ 35 before a false start backed them up and created a fourth and 10. Tim Moore’s fourth-down pass was intercepted by Chris McDaniel, who took it 72 yards to the house and deflated GW’s chances of getting its first win of the season.

While the interception was the turning point of the game, the Amherst offense used the sweeps to dictate the tempo of the contest, wearing down a GW defense that showed improvement on the night but came up short.

“Our guys did a tremendous job of blocking the edge. I can’t say enough of the effort of our offensive line gave tonight,” Amherst County coach Cecil Phillips said. “We executed a lot of different sweeps there, and (I was) very pleased with the ways things turned out.”

For the Eagles — a team that is replacing so many pieces on defense and on the offensive line — things are starting to turn around.

“We came out kind of sloppy in the second half, and we got back into the groove too late,” Wilson said. “But we made big progress, and we are a different team.”