Hargrave Military Academy got a great start on their 2008 football campaign by pounding Fishburne Military School 63-0.
The Tigers (1-0) scored on every possession in the first half and did so in a variety of ways; racking up 128 passing yards and 130 yards on the ground.
“We want to have a balanced attack,” coach Dave Tavenner said. “We have the personnel to run a spread offense and tonight it was pretty successful.”
Hargrave took an early 7-0 lead with 7:38 remaining in the first quarter with a 35-yard touchdown pass from quarterback T.J. Bennett to Chris Taylor. On their next possession, Hargrave scored again on a 35-yard pass from Bennett to Dominique Clay, the first of Clay’s three scores against the Caissons (0-1).
Clay’s second score came on the ground with 7:34 remaining in the first half when he scored from 7 yards out. His third and final touchdown was on a 35-yard run in the third quarter.
Bennett also finished with a strong night, throwing three touchdown passes and connecting on all but one his passes for six completions.
Tavenner liked what he saw from the Tigers from both sides of the ball.
“I think we got off to a good start,” Tavenner said.” I feel our conditioning paid off and that was one of our strong points during practice. Defensively, we played strong and I liked our gang tackling.”
“Offensively, we had few errors and penalties. We just have to keep practicing and keep focusing.”
Despite the lopsided score, Fishburne coach Val Gochenhour was able to take some positive points from the contest.
“We saw strong running from our running backs,” Gochenhour said. “Our kick-off return worked well, too. We do need to work on our open field tackling and blocking. Our outside linebackers got suck in and we didn’t have any outside contain.”
“After this, we just have to go back to the drawing board and start again,” Gochenhour said.
Tavenner also saw a few ways Hargrave could improve before next week’s game with Fork Union.
“Our special teams kind of struggled,” Tavenner said. “And we need to get better with our down field blocking. On defense we could also be a bit more disciplined in the gaps.”
“We just need to be disciplined, be aggressive and be in better shape and we will have a good season,” Tavenner said.
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