Spotswood tops Lee, still perfect

STAUNTON — Friday night featured the top two teams from the Southern Valley and Massanutten Districts. The undefeated Spotswood Trailblazers marched into Staunton to take on one-loss Robert E. Lee and put up 15 fourth-quarter points to defeat the Leemen 29-10.

The Blazers took their first possession and marched down field before Chad Williams took the quarterback keeper in from one-yard out to give the Blazers the lead.

Lee responded with their own score late in the first quarter when Devante White and Chris Williams hooked up twice on the drive, before White connected with Williams on an 18-yard strike in the corner of the end zone to tie the game 7-7.

Both defenses held their ground in the second quarter. With the Blazers driving inside Lee territory, a short fourth down play turned disastrous for the Blazers when a swarm of Leemen sacked Williams in the backfield.

Lee was able to get a huge field goal right before the half when Dustin Burdick hit a 44-yard try to give the Leemen the 10-7 advantage at the half, but for the Leemen that would be all the scoring they would do on the night.

In the second half the Blazers slowly wore down the Leemen and were able to push across for the lead at 14-10 on a one-yard TD run by Nick Wimer.

“We have such a great group of seniors here this year and they do a great job at leading us,” said Spotswood coach Eric Phillips. “Lee is a tough team and we knew we had to stop [Devante] White from running all over us and I thought we were able to do that.”

The Lee offense was unable to get anything going, White was unable to use his legs to get around defenders as Spotswood had him in wraps for the entire second half.

In the fourth quarter the Blazers were able to put the game away. With only a four-point lead the Blazers added two touchdowns to give themselves a commanding 19-point lead.

“I thought their depth really wore us down,” said Lee coach David Tibbs. “We had some guys playing both defense and offense and they were running low on energy down the stretch. We can’t make excuses though and have to come back next week ready to play.”

Lee (4-2, 2-0 Southern Valley) will travel next Friday to play another tough Massanutten District team in Turner Ashby.