To say the Craig County football season is off to a good start would be quite the understatement. In the first two weeks of the season the Rocket offense has scored 116 points and the defense has pitched two shutouts.
Last Friday in New Castle the Rockets broke the school scoring record with a 68-0 win over Bland County, a team that had won 34-7 the week before. Friday the Rockets were up 50-0 by halftime against the Bears on their way to a record performance in the annual “Backwoods Brawl.”
“The Bland score has been on my mind all weekend,” said Craig coach Jimmy Fisher. “I know everyone is happy that we broke the single game scoring record but I have empathy for Bland. We have been on the receiving end of that kind of score and I know how it feels. Bland is a lot like Craig and they face the same hurdles in achieving success as we do.
“However, I am not sure what we could have done much differently. Our starters have worked very hard and they only played for a half. I think they deserve at least a half, but some of them didn’t even get that, as we subbed some out in the second quarter.”
The Rockets scored 28 points in the first period alone. Caleb Cregger got things started with a 33-yard TD reception from Bentley Smith. Noah Paxton then ran for a 25-yard TD, and Smith and Cregger hooked up again for a 30-yard passing TD. Paxton scored again on a two-yard run and it was 28-0 before the first quarter was over.
Craig kept up the onslaught in the second period. Dreydin Smith scored on a one-yard run, Paxton scored on a 12-yard run and Bentley Smith took off for a 41-yard gallop to paydirt, then scored a two point conversion run, his second of the night. Cregger, Clayton Cassell and Wyatt Huffman all had extra point kicks.
Robbie Eakin scored three second half touchdowns and ended up leading the team in rushing with three carries for 100 yards and three scores, one for 30 yards, one for 57 and a final TD for 13 yards. Paxton had seven carries for 69 yards, Bentley Smith had two for 51, Sawyer Rutter had four for 34 yards, Bradyn Dundar had three for 30 and Dreyden Smith had two for 23 as Craig rushed for 307 yards on 21 carries, an average of just under 15 yards per attempt. Bentley Smith passed just twice, both for touchdowns to Cregger.
“We only threw two passes, both in the first quarter,” said Fisher. “Our second and third string and JV kids played the entire second half. Our scoring plays in the second half were all right up the middle, no passes, no counters. Those kids have also worked hard and deserve a chance for success, too.
“At halftime, we told the kids playing the second half just to play hard. We had scored 50 points in the first half, so we told them if they broke the scoring record, fine, if not, fine. We weren’t chasing records but if it happened, it happened. We told them to do their best on defense, that we always want a shutout but we wouldn’t be upset in any way if they gave up some points. We are trying to build depth for the future and we didn’t want them to feel any pressure. They did great on both sides of the ball. They made some mistakes but we were extremely proud of the effort and the results.”
Blake Kendall led the defense with 11 tackles. Dreydin Smith had nine and Paxton had eight, three of which went for losses while playing less than a half of game time. Marcus Donithan had six tackles, three going for losses, and had a forced fumble. Conner Donithan and Jadeon Huffman had five tackles each, Carter Price and Jeremiah Fowler had four and Kadin Arthurs had three, with one for a loss.
“There wasn’t much opportunity for our secondary to make many tackles,” said Fisher. “Bland never attempted a pass and their running backs were usually tackled by the defensive linemen or linebackers.”
While Fisher is happy to be 2-0, he’s far from satisfied. The Rockets still have a long way to go to be the team Fisher hopes they will become.
“We have a good football team but we aren’t where we want to be,” he said. “We are getting better. The scoreboard looked like we played really well against Smith Mountain Lake and Galax but we made a ton of mistakes both games. We had a great week of practice last week, and I think we got some of it cleaned up. But we still have to fix some stuff. We are nowhere close to being as good as we can be. The kids have done a good job of being coachable. They really want to maximize their potential.”
This week the Rockets will travel to Beckley, W.Va., to play Greater Beckley Christian. Craig picked up Beckley after another team dropped the Rockets and Fisher had to scramble to find an opponent to fill out the schedule.
“Greater Beckley Christian has not had a team in several years,” said Fisher. “They’re a basketball powerhouse and were state runners-up last year in basketball, so they have some elite skill kids. They seem to be building the program the right way. They play their home games in a stadium, Mount Hope Municipal Stadium, that was built by the WPA during the Great Depression. An iconic field that I look forward to seeing. I think they will have trouble matching our physicality and stopping our offense. We need to keep their athletes in front of us defensively and we need to play our style of football. If we do that, we should go into our bye week 3-0.”
