Southern Maryland News

Stone football shut out by Calvert; Chargers, Eagles, Spartans, Wolverines all win

Gray, Mason key as Calvert shuts out Stone

- By AJ MASON ajmason@somdnews.com

If it wasn’t Calvert running back Shamar Gray making plays on offense with his elusive speed, it was defensive back Cody Mason coming up huge on defense and on special teams in Friday night’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Chesapeake Division football contest versus visiting Thomas Stone.

The two seniors accounted for five of the six touchdowns in Calvert’s 41- 0 victory over the Cougars on senior night before a huge crowd in Prince Frederick.

Calvert ( 7- 1, 3- 1 SMAC Chesapeake) is tied for second in the division with county rival Patuxent and is making push for the Class 2A South Region playoffs with two weeks remaining. The Cavaliers take on host Westlake at 7 p. m. Friday versus a Wolverines squad that edged La Plata in Week 8, 32- 29, and ends the regular season in Week 10 at Lackey,

two critical games with playoff implicatio­ns on the line.

“Our offense and defense is made up of a lot of seniors and for them to go out and play that hard and set the tone was important because Thomas Stone had played some great games this year and if you keep those around who knows what happens,” Calvert head coach Rick Sneade said.

The Cavaliers had success all night with its run game, rushing for 362 yards on 41 carries, over 8 1/2 yards per carry. Gray finished with 202 of those yards on 17 carries to go with four touchdowns.

Calvert did not waste any time as Gray broke on the first play of the game 15 seconds in for a 60-yard touchdown run.

“Everyone in the huddle we’re all seniors and we said that we are going to score on the first play and that is what we did,” Gray said. “We’ve grown and matured a lot from last year and we want to go out this year with a bang.”

Early in the second quarter, the Stone offense drove all the way to the Calvert 2-yard line. But on fourth down and goal, senior quarterbac­k Jonathan Harris was stuffed at the 1 by Mason, who made a huge tackle to help halt a drive that went 68 plays on six plays.

“I had to step up for my team and that’s all I had to do,” Mason said. “Tonight we had to make our fans and coaches proud.”

On the ensuing drive, Calvert responded with a 13-play, 99-yard drive that was capped by a 26-yard touchdown scamper by Gray with 2 minutes 56 seconds left in the second. On the ninth play of that drive, a fourth down and 5, Mason rushed for eight yards to pick up the first down to keep the drive alive on a fake punt.

“We have to finish on that that drive and in contrast [Calvert] drove 99 yards, we have to get our defense off the field,” Stone head coach Danny Ripple said. “It was something that we were getting better at, unfortunat­ely it disappeare­d tonight. Hats off to Calvert and their staff, they completely outcoached and outplayed us in every phase tonight.”

Mason made another huge play on defense as he intercepte­d a Harris pass and ran 63 yards for the score with 15.3 seconds left in the first half to push the Cavaliers’ lead to the eventual 20-0 halftime lead. Calvert had two picks on the night as Dajuan Willett had one in the first quarter.

“That pick-six was big for Cody because we have a lot of running backs and had to put him on full-time defense, so him being able to score on defense was huge,” Sneade said.

In the second half, Calvert tacked on 21 more points as senior quarterbac­k Jack Lanham had a 15-yard touchdown run for the only points in the third quarter. Gray added two more fourth-quarter scores with runs of 24 and 34 yards.

The Cavaliers defense, which had three takeaways in the game, held Stone to 97 yards of total offense.

Stone (4-4, 3-2) had its three-game win streak snapped. It will host Patuxent, which defeated Chopticon 29-21 in Week 8, at 7 p.m. Friday

Stone’s Delonta Nunnally had a intercepti­on in the game.

 ?? PHOTO BY DEBBIE MCINTOSH ?? Thomas Stone senior running back De’John Broadwater looks for running room as Calvert defensive lineman Tyler Smith, left, and Joey Osborne trail behind the play in Friday night’s SMAC Chesapeake Division contest at Calvert High School in Prince...
PHOTO BY DEBBIE MCINTOSH Thomas Stone senior running back De’John Broadwater looks for running room as Calvert defensive lineman Tyler Smith, left, and Joey Osborne trail behind the play in Friday night’s SMAC Chesapeake Division contest at Calvert High School in Prince...
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