The ever present circumstances around trying to play football this year, youth, injuries all valid excuses… if Louisa County believed in excuses.
The 4-time defending Jefferson District champion doesn’t have an unbeaten streak in the JD that dates back to 2017 because they make excuses. Standards. From the outside looking in, those are what the Lions believe in. So when a pair of offensive linemen went down with injury it was next man up. And while Louisa’s offense might have taken a little time to get rolling, with the way the defense was playing against a Monticello offense led by UVa-bound Malachi Fields, it didn’t really matter.
Once the holes opened up for Kalep Shelton the Louisa senior imposed his will to roll off 35 unanswered points in a 35-7 victory to improve to 3-0 on the year
“Sometimes you get some bad breaks and you have to just keep playing, you’ve got to adjust,” said Lions coach Will Patrick. “That’s the whole theme of this 2021 spring season — adjust, adapt and keep moving forward. That’s what we talk about every day.”
The first quarter was mostly about defenses forcing turnovers on downs on a cold and windy night that was unfriendly to any kind of passing game for either side. But in typical Louisa fashion, it only took one soul crushing drive of first down after first down to open up the scoring. When Shelton picked up the first of his four touchdowns on the night, a four yard plunge, the Lions put together a 21-0 lead over the next 10:36 of play after Shelton punched in back-to-back drive capping touchdowns from 19-yards yard, the latter with am about cold-as-the-weather stiff arm at the 5-yard line.
“The guys up front made some big holes so all the respect to the linemen,” Shelton said. “The kids coming in tonight, they showed me a lot, they surprised us. What they did tonight, I’m just so proud of them. The second string guys, the people that got in? Love ‘em!”
With sophomore Elijah Brooks creating real havoc coming off the edge and Lowell Johnson pounding the the Monticello offensive front at the nose, the Lions were able to contain Monticello offensively in a bend but don’t break way early on. Louisa saw the Mustangs get into the redzone twice in the in the first half but come away without points. The final play of the first half looked like a Monticello touchdown until Louisa’s Jordan Smith got a hand on the ball in the endzone to break up the pass.
“So I’m really proud of our guys and their effort that they played with all the way through,” said Mustangs coach Matt Hicks. “This (Louisa) program might be the best in this area of the state, players and coaches and so they are tough. I was excited how our guys battled through out. We had some injuries on the offensive line too and I saw young guys stepping up tonight. That defensive front seven is tough and we knew that and Louisa proved it. But with our guys battling that beginning to end, I’m just so proud of that.”
If there was an opening for Monticello it came in the beginning of the third quarter after the defense came up with a turnover on downs. From there Fields connected on his biggest pass of the night with a 34-yard dart to Jason Armstrong to set the offense up at first and goal from the Lions 8-yard line. But the Lions got a stop on fourth down and with Smith then scoring on the longest run of the game, a 41-yard sprint, the game was suddenly out of reach at 28-0. Louisa saw Shelton pick up one last touchdown with a 4-yard push to make it 35-0 while on the other side of the ball, the Lions created havoc in the backfield.
“Our D-line, man — effort, effort effort,” Patrick said. “Giving maximum effort. We’ve got a good little rotation up there that we put in and those guys just play hard. They love playing, love playing football and that’s why I love coaching.”
Monticello did not go quietly though. Fields was able to break up the shutout with a 19-yard pass to Kai Gaines to kill the running clock. And after the game got a touch testy and the clock wore down, both squads rolled in their second stringers to finish the night peacefully with both units getting a little more than a half of a quarter of valuable playing time.
On the night, Lions’ defense held Monticello to -18 rushing yards, something that Johnson, as a senior is quite understandably happy with.
“We knew this was going to be a challenge but hey — every day we go over to practice, we go over plays, we go over defensive plays and we run these things every single day,” Johnson said. “To do what we did out here? You can’t say nothing. We executed.”
Shelton led the offense with 157 yards on 21 rushes. Landon Wilson sneakily put together a solid night with 10 carries for 87 yards. Smith had four attempts for 68. The Lions had 379 yards rushing total.
Fields was able to put up 81 yards on 7-of-18 passing while under heavy pressure. Gaines had four receptions for 48 of those yards.
Louisa (3-0) advances to its bye before it moves on to face Fluvanna County (1-1) on the road March 19. Monticello (1-2) hosts Orange (1-1) on March 12.
