No. 5 Williamsburg wins with second half surge

WILLIAMSBURG — The Class 2A No. 5 Williamsburg football team played 24 minutes of good football Friday night.

That was how Coach Curt Ritchie, saw it at least, as the Raiders (6-0, 4-0) used a 30-point second half to beat Mid-Prairie, 37-20, overcoming a 14-7 halftime deficit that saw two Jacob Halub interceptions lead directly to scores.

'I thought it was just a great team effort the second half,' Ritchie said. 'We obviously didn't take care of the ball in the first half — way too many turnovers, missed opportunities. They got a little momentum and we had to regroup at halftime, and I thought it was a great team effort and show of heart to put together a half like that.'

Williamsburg had outgained Mid-Prairie, 122-73 in the first half, and apart from the two scoring drives had shut down the Golden Hawks (3-3, 2-1) on the ground, surrendering just 37 yards in that first half.

The message to the Raider players at halftime, then, was to refocus on fundamentals and remember what got them to them to 5-0 to start the season. The Raiders recommitted themselves to the run game in that big second half, mostly behind the speedy legs of Mitchell Stahl, who ran off right tackle repeatedly and gained huge chunks of yards at a time.

Stahl carried 20 times in the second half alone for 146 yards and three second-half touchdowns. He finished the game with 34 carries for 205 yards and four touchdowns.

Add in a compliment to Stahl with Blake Hughes (14 carries for 67 yards) and fullback Allyn Francis (seven carries for 17 yards and one touchdown), and it was the recipe for a win.

In all, the Raiders rushed for 297 yards as a team.

'I think we made a few blocking scheme changes on the inside run plays, which I thought was huge,' Ritchie said. 'Then the biggest difference I saw was we wore them down. I thought the combination of all those guys (worked). Mitchell Stahl was just tremendous. He stepped up and made plays for us.

'I though Jackson Subbert blocked tremendously. We liked that play to the right side, got our guys where we wanted to go and just really executed.'

Still undefeated and eyeing a District 5 championship, Ritchie said the second half response says a lot about where his team is mentally and what it's capable of.

Obviously there's still a lot of football left to be played, but if they can put 48 minutes of football together instead of 24 — as he said they've done a few times this season — they'll be tough to beat down the stretch.

'People might say this isn't the most talented team we've ever had here, and you can measure all those heights, you can measure all those weights, but you can't measure heart, effort and team unity. And that's what this team strives on,' Ritchie said. 'We'll just keep trying to get better on that and see how far it takes us.

'We're just going to have to put it all together one of these nights.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com