Immediately upon coming to the front of his team’s postgame huddle, Louisa County coach Will Patrick tore a copy of the VHSL’s region standings in half and made clear what the past 48 minutes of football already had.
“Those are wrong now!”
Those standings — because of the way the power points’ math formula works — put Orange County at the top of the heap had the Lions third. Louisa used a combination of an efficient run game and a smothering defense after an initial strike by the Hornets to win 49-7, beat Orange for the 14th-straight time and stay undefeated on the season.
“We had a game plan and we executed — we started off a little sloppy but as a brotherhood we came together and just turned it up,” said Louisa defensive lineman Qwenton Spellman. “We just wanted to make a statement tonight.”
Statement made.
The Lions’ offensive line opened big holes in the ground game that allowed freshman Savion Hiter to explode for 158 yards and two touchdowns on just 14 touches. He also caught a pair of passes for 65 yards and a score to pile up 223 of the Lions’ 439 yards.
“We were just grinding, we pushed and we had some amazing holes open up and just killed it out there,” said Louisa offensive lineman Shane Bibb. “This feels great. It feels amazing.”
It was Hiter’s classmate though, Dyzier Carter, who struck first when he hauled in a 26-yard touchdown pass from Landon Wilson early in the first quarter. Orange answered almost immediately with a 57-yard Christian Simpson run right up the middle of the Lions’ vaunted defense.
“We got caught there the third play from scrimmage,” Patrick said. “We made a couple of adjustments and our guys really bowed their necks and shut them out the rest of the game. That’s what we can do when we do everything right.”
The offense also stepped up right away with Wilson finding Hiter on a swing pass to the right side that Hiter turned into a 49-yard sprint to the endzone and a 14-7 lead. Late in the first quarter, Wilson got in on the ground game action with a 5-yard touchdown run. Things really spiraled out of control for Orange in the second quarter when Louisa tacked on two more touchdowns, one a 9-yard Hiter score and the other a 15-yard rainbow of a touchdown toss by Wilson to the front corner of the endzone that Carter snatched away from two Orange defenders. That score came with six seconds left in the half and effectively broke the Hornets’ back going into the locker room.
“We’re not a 42-point worse football team but we’ve got to fix some things around here and it’s a tough fix because it deals more with mindsets than the physical being,” said Orange coach Jesse Lohr. “I’m proud of these kids and the effort, but there’s no excuse we have to be better in these moments.”
Wilson finished with 183 yards through the air on 9-for-18 passing, with Carter notching 84 yards on three catches to lead the receiving effort. Wilson also rushed for 44 yards and two scores. The Lions’ offense averaged 7.8 yards per attempt on the ground.
The final nail in the coffin came in the third when Orange’s initial drive stalled just outside the redzone and Hiter ripped off a 76-yard touchdown immediately to push the lead to 42-7. It was a satisfying win for the Lions and a chance to keep building on what appears to be a special campaign for Louisa.
“The juice was flowing tonight, a lot of banter — I appreciate the fact that our young men get to play a football game against a rival,” Patrick said. “That’s what this is about, it’s about building character. The camaraderie being built on this team is something special.”
The Lions will host Western Albemarle next week while Orange travels to take on Fluvanna County.
