The Craig County football team is hoping to have a happy Homecoming when the Rockets play host to Twin Valley Friday night at Mitchell Stadium.
Twin Valley is a Group 1A school from Pilgrims Knob, VA. The Panthers and Rockets have one thing in common; they both lost to Montcalm.
“Montcalm beat them by two points,” said Craig coach Mark Harrison. “They looked decent. They run out of the ‘I’.”
Craig lost to Montcalm last Friday, 32-12, in West Virginia. It was a game the Rockets were hoping to win but it was the beginning of a tough weekend for Harrison, who ended up in the hospital Saturday suffering from a bout of dehydration.
“It was a very disappointing loss,” he said. “I was feeling bad and I didn’t get them pumped up like I should, then we played a bad game. We didn’t do anything we practiced during the week and we had two linemen missing on both sides of the ball. You’re going to have games like that sometimes. We want to get better each week but last week we took a step back. This week, we need to take two steps forward.”
Craig had a bad first half, trailing 26-6 at intermission. However, they sucked it up and played the Panthers even in the second half to keep the score respectable.
“We adjusted to a few things,” said Harrison. “We went from a five man front to a four man front and our coverage was better. Give them credit, they had a good scheme.”
One of the bright spots was two touchdown passes by Dakota Henderson. He hit Dalton McPherson for one TD and Ben Deplazes for another. McPherson also had 101 yards rushing on 10 attempts and Henderson rushed for 73 yards on 14 carries.
On defense Henderson led with 19 tackles, including 10 unassisted, and Deplazes had 11. Jacob Bradford and Kyle Sloss had eight tackles each, Matt Huffman had six, Austin Brookman and Brandon Swingle had four each and Camron Fisher and John Bunnell had three tackles. David Smith had an interception.
Now 0-4, the Rockets will be home for just the second time this Friday. It’s Homecoming, and a nice crowd is expected.
“That should get them pumped up,” said Harrison. “We’re going to chalk last week up to inexperience and try to fix some things up this week.”
