'1-2-3 punch' in the backfield for Eagles

The locker room was still as boisterous on Wednesday as the bus ride back from Halifax County Friday night. A renewed enthusiasm engulfed the George Washington football team after finding out that their season, which seemed destined to be over after the regular season finale last Friday, was continuing for another week.

“We almost started shaking the bus, we jumped up and down,” GW senior running back David Wilson said. “One kid asked (GW coach Dan) Newell, ‘What time do we get out of class to go to Brooke Point?’ And coach said, ‘Who said anything about school?’ And we went crazy again.”

The Eagles (6-4) are riding a three-game winning streak heading into tonight’s Group AAA Northwest Region Division 5 semifinal game against Brooke Point, the No. 1 seed in the division. These two teams have history, as recent as last season, when the seeds were flip-flopped and GW hammered the visiting Black Hawks 48-21 in the playoff opener.

The Eagles have to travel more than 200 miles north to Stafford to face the 9-1 Commonwealth District champion Black Hawks, who are riding a four-game winning streak. It is the second straight season Brooke Point has won nine games.

For the Eagles, tonight’s matchup with Brooke Point will remind them a lot of their games against Parkland and Halifax County, as they will have to defend against a solid passing attack. Brooke Point quarterback Brian Hudson has thrown for more than 1,800 yards and 21 touchdowns.

The difference from those two teams is that the Black Hawks can run the ball, as well. Gershom Reed had to step in for starting running back Chase Barnett, who went down four weeks ago with a broken leg. In those three weeks, Reed has rushed for 449 yards and seven touchdowns.

“Gershom is a good running back for us. He’s not trying to be Chase, who for us is a once-in-a-lifetime back,” Brooke Point coach Jeff Barry said. “Gershom is a versatile back for us and we’re going to stick the ball in his belly 15-20 times Friday night and expect him to produce.”

“Obviously, the loss of their tailback affects them, but their backup tailback could probably start for anybody that we’re going to play against all season long,” Newell said. “He’s a tremendous talent, as well.”

The running attack will be the focal point for both defenses to key on. For most of the season, GW has featured the senior tandem of Wilson and Tahron Goods. They became the first teammates since 1994 to both rush for more than 1,000 yards.

Wilson broke the 2,000-yard plateau for the first time in GW history, racking up 2,100 yards and a mind-boggling 30 rushing touchdowns this season. The Virginia Tech recruit piled up 760 of those yards in the final three weeks of the season — on just 43 carries. He also added 12 rushing touchdowns in that span, when the Eagles went from outhouse to penthouse in the playoff standings.

“It’s a big motivation going in. It gives us a lot of confidence to come back the way our season was headed and turn it all around and start anew in the playoffs at 0-0,” Wilson said. “To come back to have an equal chance for a championship like anybody else is a big movement of confidence.”

Newell and Barry both know the running games will not single-handedly win tonight’s contest, especially when both defenses are gunning to stop it. Newell acknowledged that in order to win any playoff games, the Eagles will need to be able to throw the ball since the Black Hawks can strike at any time with the run or the pass and GW needs to be able to do the same.

“Their quarterback throws the ball very well and I think that the loss of their tailback opened up their passing game, where they’re not going to be afraid to throw the ball and they’re going to be very balanced,” Newell said. “So, we’re going to have to defend the run and the pass most every play. And they’ve got some playmakers out there that can do some things.”

Newell plans on implementing more of a base defense to allow his defense to not be beaten on blown assignments and in gaps created in the trenches. The same could be said for Barry and his defensive scheme. Barry feels that the key to the game will be which defense makes the plays and forces the other team off the field, as both the Eagles and Black Hawks’ offenses can eat up clock and generate big plays.

“It’s funny, you look at the explosiveness that GW has and we’ve been able to score a few points too,” Barry said. “It’s tough to stop them totally, but at the same time, it’s going to be whichever defense is going to do it consistently. I don’t think either offense can waste possessions — at least from our standpoint.”

The explosiveness for GW has an added element with the addition of Devaughn Benion to the regular rotation in the backfield. Benion has rushed for 307 yards and four touchdowns on 11 carries in the last two games.

“Their offense is really explosive, that’s the key word there,” Barry said. “It was tough enough when you have to worry about those two — Goods and
Wilson — and you throw No. 3 in the mix, it makes your head spin. Anyone of those three, you can stop them here and there, then one of them will break it.”

“We’ve gotten to the point now that people are so determined to try to stop David on the perimeter that the counter game for Devaughn has taken off and we’ve changed our formations around to get him in there to play all three of them at one time and that’s really helped us out a lot,” Newell said.

As Goods put it, it has become the ‘1-2-3 punch’ that Brooke Point will now have to worry about when trying to stop the Eagles tonight.