Heritage Rallies on the Road

Madison Scores on Offense and Defense for Pride

by Ed Guzman

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

First, Heritage had to wait three extra days to start the season after its opener at South Lakes was postponed due to rain. Then, it had to overcome a two-touchdown deficit. And finally, just when the Pride appeared to have the game in hand, it had to sweat out a frantic rally by the Seahawks.

But in the end, the Pride used the playmaking ability of running back Ross Madison and some timely passes and runs by quarterback Zach Gordon to secure a 28-21 victory in Reston on Monday night.

It was not easy picking up the road win against the AAA school. South Lakes ran for more than 300 yards, including 193 by sophomore Ja'Juan Jones. Senior Brandon Price scored twice and rushed for 96 yards, 85 of them on a touchdown run with 2:55 to play to draw the Seahawks to within 28-21.

On the ensuing possession, the Pride tried to run out the clock. But Heritage was unable to gain a first down and when it attempted to punt, Seahawks senior Quintin Fortes broke through to block the kick, giving South Lakes the ball at the Heritage 42-yard line with 1:56 left.

Without a timeout, South Lakes tried to move into scoring position quickly, primarily using running plays to get inside the 10-yard line. With less than 10 seconds left, the Seahawks attempted to stop the clock by spiking the ball, but because it was fourth down, they lost the ball on downs. One kneel-down later, the Pride had survived.

"We were tired some," Heritage Coach Wes Driskill said. "We've got a lot of people going both ways so it's not that we were totally out of shape. But yeah, our conditioning needs to be a little better. It's one of those first games where you have some of those mistakes in there, but I think it's a great game to build on. We needed some success tonight."

In the first half, turnovers and penalties proved costly for Heritage. One promising first-quarter drive ended with an interception and after Jones had scored on a two-yard run to put South Lakes up, 7-0, the Pride fumbled the ensuing kickoff. Five plays later, Price ran it in from four yards out to put the Seahawks up 14-0.

T.J. McPhaul's ensuing kickoff return was called back because of a penalty, but Heritage soon righted itself with a six-play drive in which Gordon completed all four of his passes. His last pass was a 29-yarder to Russell East on the last play of the half that made it 14-7 and gave Heritage a spark.

On the first possession of the third quarter, the Pride ran another six-play drive (this one all runs) to perfection and capped it off with a 32-yard touchdown run by Gordon to tie the score at 14.

"It's nice for the senior who's worked hard to have success and have some big plays tonight like he did," Driskill said.

Heritage took the lead for good with 1:34 left when Madison intercepted a pass and weaved his way through the South Lakes offense 45 yards for a score. The senior added a 14-yard scamper late in the fourth quarter and after the two-point conversion pass was grabbed by East, Heritage appeared to have the game under control before South Lakes rallied.

"We gave Ross some room to run," Driskill said. "He's a pretty good athlete if you give him time and some space to run."

Madison finished with 83 yards rushing on 11 carries and East made three catches for 59 yards. Gordon completed 9 of 12 passes for 165 yards.

With the game against South Lakes getting pushed back to Monday, Heritage has only a few days to regroup and get ready to host North Hagerstown on Friday night.

"We do have the benefit of having seen them play in person on Saturday night, so we did get that in," Driskill said. "It'll be their first game, and it'll be our second game, so that evens that out a little bit. Plus, we don't have to travel up there; they have to come to us."

Tagged: football, Heritage High School, high school sports, South Lakes High School

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