Fishburne falls 3 points shy

Missed opportunities and key turnovers spelled doom for Fishburne Military School on Monday afternoon.

After pulling within three points of Roanoke Catholic, the Caissons’ offense stalled allowing Roanoke Catholic to pick up the 17-14 win.

“It was a heartbreaker for us,” said Fishburne coach Val Gochenour. “We made some great adjustments at halftime and we had some opportunities to score, we just didn’t execute.”

Monday’s game was originally scheduled for Friday afternoon, but Roanoke Catholic was forced to postpone the game after a wave of illness swept over its campus.

“Our guys have been behind the eight ball all week,” said Celtics coach Bob Price. “We had a lot of guys that didn’t get any work outs in because they have been sick. We tried to work out on Saturday, but we still didn’t have the whole team.”

After both teams traded fumbles to open the game, Fishburne’s offense got the chance to try and redeem itself but gained only one yard in its first three downs, forcing a punt from its own six-yard line. The Celtics dropped the punt and Marquise Barfield recovered, changing the tide of the quarter in Fishburne’s favor.

The Caissons scored on the drive, with quarterback Chet Berry connecting with Derek Rogers for a 10-yard score, putting Fishburne up 7-0 after the kick.

The Caisson defense stopped the Celtics 20 yards shy of the end zone on an early fourth down attempt. Fishburne’s offense was unable to drive from deep in its own territory forcing another punt.

The snap was high, and sailed out of the end zone giving the Celtics the safety to make the score 7-2. The Celtics scored another eight points after the free kick, when Nick Ollie scored from seven yards and Mark Allman ran in for the two-point conversion.

The Celtics scored one more touchdown in the half after Allman connected with Christian Akers for a 33-yards, setting up Allman to run in from seven.

Two fumbles and a missed field goal kept Fishburne off the board in the third quarter.

In the fourth, Berry connected with Barfield on a post route for an 11-yard score to pull Fishburne within three points, but after the defense forced the Celtics to go three-and-out, Berry threw his only interception of the game stopping the drive and allowing Roanoke Catholic to melt the seconds off the clock.

Roanoke Catholic wound the clock down to 25.2 seconds before a Fishburne interception put life back into the comeback hope.

After his first pass was incomplete, Berry connected with David Candelario, but the Celtic defense made a clutch tackle as the final whistle blew.

Berry finished the day with 191 yards in the air, completing 12 of 23 passes. Andre Truesdell led the Fishburne rushing game with 61 yards.

Roanoke Catholic’s Nick Ollie rushed for 100 yards on 16 carries and Allman passed for 112 yards with two interceptions.

The Caisson’s (2-3) will have a short week before traveling to rival Massanutten Military Academy on Saturday.