There were the expected big blowouts by number-one seeds over number-sixteen seeds as VHSL first-round playoff football kicked off Friday night.
Dwight Bogle Stadium didn’t play host to one of them.
Playing with nothing to lose, #16 Waynesboro scored the first three touchdowns of the game and never looked back, as the Little Giants throttled #1 seed Hidden Valley 39-15.
Waynesboro brought its triple-option offense into Bogle with a 5-5 record, but Hidden Valley never found the answer to slow down the Little Giant arsenal.
Waynesboro led 25-7 at the halftime break. When the Little Giants took the second half kickoff and methodically drove for a touchdown that ate up over 6 minutes, the score was 32-7 and it was all over but the shouting by the Waynesboro faithful that had bussed to Roanoke.
“I can’t explain what this means not only to our team, but to our entire school,” Waynesboro head coach Derek McDaniel said after a rousing speech to his squad at midfield. “We’ve come from nowhere. We were underrated and ‘under’ everything else. We were able to find some confidence and it kept growing all night.”
Hidden Valley looked like it might be in for a good night when the Titans took the opening kickoff and moved close to the Little Giant 25-yard line. But, the drive stalled and the Little Giant triple-option quickly became the giant slayers.
Waynesboro efficiently went 74 yards before a Dominique Gray 4-yard run made it 6-0. Late in the quarter it became 12-0 when Little Giant quarterback Chris Baker hit looping fullback Jadaciss Williams on a fourth down pass that covered 19 yards. Baker scored on a 1-yard plunge in the second quarter for a 18-0 Waynesboro lead, with the only kink in the Giant armor showing from three missed extra points.
The Titans finally got on the scoreboard with 1:56 left in the first half when senior tailback Tariq Harris scored from one-yard out. Mykal Perdue’s conversion cut the deficit to 18-7 with plenty of time left for a second half Titan comeback.
But, Waynesboro stayed in attack mode, and when Baker hit running back Steffen Thornton on a screen pass on the last play of the second quarter for a 40-yard touchdown, Hidden Valley was in deep trouble going to the break down 25-7.
The time consuming Waynesboro drive to open the third quarter basically put the nail in the coffin.
Hidden Valley scored with 8:56 left in the game on senior Chris Wilburn’s 19-yard catch from Titan quarterback Jake Smiley. Ryan Mitchell added a 2-point conversion catch to make it 32-15, but it was too little, too late. Waynesboro added a touchdown to secure the final margin.
“The better team won tonight,” Hidden Valley head coach Scott Weaver said outside the Titan locker room. ‘It’s a disheartening loss for our 20 seniors. I’m still very proud of our season.”
“I can’t explain it,” McDaniel added. “Hidden Valley has a very good defense and we had the utmost respect for them. They weren’t the #1seed by accident. We just strapped it up and just played. We’ve played much better defense since the start of the season.”
“Last year we proved the seeds don’t matter when we beat the #4 and #5 as a twelve seed,” Weaver pointed out. “Tonight, we proved it again.”
– Bill Turner
