Blacksburg’s Drew Babcock (11) returns a badly shanked Jefferson Forest punt during the first quarter.
Blacksburg showed Friday night why they’re the defending state champions. A move up in classification from 3A to 4A has not changed anything as the Bruins destroyed a good Jefferson Forest team Friday night 54-6, and move on to the second round where they will face E.C. Glass, a 31-7 winner over William Byrd.
Bruin head coach Thad Wells felt his defense played extremely well on Friday night, while the offense started a little slow with some mental mistakes, but recovered nicely.
Against Jefferson Forest, Blacksburg’s Grant Johnston threw for 269 yards on 11 of 19 and five touchdowns. Cole Beck had nine carries for 79 yards and scored three touchdowns (two rushing and one receiving). Tiquest Terry added six catches for 168 yards.
One of the positives this season has been the play of juniors Cole Epperley (6-0, 160 safety) and Drew Babcock (6-2, 190, linebacker) who have racked up double digit tackles almost every game for the past five weeks.
“They are two similar type of players. They both play with a lot of emotion and fly to the football. They are two of the most aggressive players we have, and they have helped on both sides of the ball,” Wells said.
It’s the Bruins play on the defensive side of the ball that might have been overlooked for most of the season, holding opponents to 172 points. Blacksburg has held seven opponents to less than 14 points this season while scoring 495 total points for an average of 45 points per game.
“We couldn’t be happier with their (the defense) performance to this point. The starting defense is now giving up less than 10 points a game. Coach Compton has done a tremendous job getting them ready each week,” Wells said.
But Blacksburg’s next opponent might be a little tougher.
“E.C. Glass has some good athletes and they play really good defense. In order for us to win, we need to eliminate last week’s mistakes on offense,” Wells sad.
In the first round of the playoffs, E.C. Glass scored at will against Byrd and held the Terriers to 69 yards of total offense in the first half. Glass led the way with 392 yards of total offense on their side of the field with 231 coming through the air. Thomas Patterson had two sacks and two for a loss.
The Hilltoppers are 8-3 this season with wins coming over Charlottesville 21-20, Halifax 42-20 Heritage 14-12, Franklin County 45-21, Rustburg 55-0, Jefferson Forest 57-36, Liberty 40-0 and William Byrd 31-7.
Losses this season came to Brookville 38-34, Liberty Christian 34-20 and Amherst 28-21.
E.C. Glass has outscored their opponents 480 to 216.
Quarterback Matt MacCallum has thrown for over 1,600 yards this season and receiver Tre Alexander has 25 catches for 645 yards and seven touchdowns.
Last week’s game was switched on radio from 105.3 the Bear to 100.7 the Mix, but should be back to its normal broadcast location this week.
