So far this season the varsity football team is 3-2. The games have shown progression, much more displayed than last year. Even though the Devils lost captains Carlo Galeano, Rashad Smith and Darius Hill due to graduation, seniors Josh Yoda, Miles Grey and Jordan Brown and junior Mitchell Pollard look to fill the void.
The Devils played the Richard Montgomery Rockets on September 26, beating them handidly with a final score of 24-6. The Devil attack was on point, racking up over 200 yards of rushing offense.
The Devils faced off against the Magruder Colonels on September 19, and the beginning of the game, the defense forced Magruder’s offense to punt their first drive. Brown and Pollard both had catches for first downs, but unfortunately senior kicker Carlos Benitez missed a field goal.
The Devils’ defensive line plugged all the holes and kept the Colonel run game to a minimum. In the middle of the first quarter, Pollard had a big hit on one of Magruder’s players. Soon after the hit by Pollard, senior Joey Daniels had an interception which led to a field goal by Benitez. At the end of the first quarter the score was 3-0 in favor of the Devils. During the second quarter, Grey continuously got big yardage on the ground. With about four minutes to go until halftime, Grey ran the ball in for a touchdown.
The Devils went down in the second half; however, their defense stood strong and kept the Colonel offense shut down.
During the third quarter, the Devils stuck with the Colonels and kept the score close. With three minutes left to play on fourth and nine, after trailing by three points, Pollard caught a 45 yard pass from senior captain Phoenix Butler-Poole to secure the win.
“I was not too happy when I caught the touchdown because that is what happened in the Gaithersburg game, when I scored a touchdown and we lost, so all I was thinking was holding them” Pollard said.
With less than 20 seconds left in the game, Magruder had the ball and had one last play, Yoda laid down a sack to prevent the Colonels from sending the game into overtime. The Devils 16-13.
“It was a great win. We lost to Gaithersburg so we still had that losing felling in us and it felt good to win,” senior Jordan Brown said.
This was Butler-Poole’s best overall outing of the season, throwing for more than 150 yards and two touchdowns.
Following the big win against Magruder, the Devils had to face off against the undefeated Sherwood Warriors. Going into the Sherwood game, the Warriors have only let up 20 points in their last four games.
“A lot of people thought we were going to lose but we had to believe, we haven’t changed anything up, we just needed to believe,” Pollard said.
Pollard pulled in one touchdown and Brown pulled in a 32 yard touchdown of his own on fourth down. With little time left in the first half, Sherwood was down 20-7. On fourth down and twelve yards to go, Sherwood got a 44 yard touchdown pass to end the first half, leaving the halftime score 20-14, in favor of the Devils.
In the third quarter the Warriors forced the Devils into four straight three-and-outs. With eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Sherwood took their first lead of the game. Sherwood’s quarterback Zack Splain threw two touchdown passes and the Devils only scored one touchdown in the whole second half.
Questionable refereeing called back a touchdown run by senior T.J. Waters, leaving the final score of game to 27-35. This was the most points any team has put up on Sherwood the entire season.
“We played a good game but we made mistakes. Coach Wendell even told us the team who makes the least mistakes will win the game,” Pollard said.
The Devils play their northeast consortium rival Paint Branch Panthers today, as they try to win the fabeled Consortium Cup.