John Marshall takes on Heritage Hall
John Marshall and its potent offense led by DeVonte Lee faced tradition-rich Heritage Hall on Friday night.
Heritage Hall’s game plan was solely focused on stopping Devonte Lee. Everybody and everything else John Marshall tried was irrelevant.
Good plan, in theory. Lee, a senior wrecking ball at running back, still rushed for nearly 300 yards and three touchdowns. But the Chargers pointed to the Taft Stadium scoreboard afterward.
Despite Lee’s efforts, Class 4A No. 4 Heritage Hall overwhelmed Class 3A No. 2 John Marshall for a 41-20 victory Friday night to open the season.
“I’ll take 420 (yards) if we put up 41 points,” Heritage Hall senior defensive back and receiver Chandler Shapard said. “We knew if we stopped him we’d win the game.”
Lee wasn’t stopped. He finished with 280 yards on 24 carries.
He looked to have put John Marshall in control when he picked up one of the Bears’ five fumbles and raced untouched for a 66-yard score on the first play of the third quarter for a 13-6 lead.
But Heritage Hall responded with five straight touchdowns, including a go-ahead picksix from Shapard.
“I saw him throw it and I literally caught it with the three fingers on my right hand and had my left hand
underneath it,” Shapard said. “It was good luck at the time, and I thought it was the gamechanger.”
In that scoring span, senior quarterback Blake Adams threw two touchdowns and two two-point conversions. Billy Ross Jr. also scored his second TD of the game, and Morgan Dinwiddie also scored on the ground.
It was evident that John Marshall was wearing down in that stretch.
“We thought that we could have done better in the first half,” Adams said. “We wanted to jump on them, and we knew they would slow down if we jumped on them.”
But Lee never stopped. He scored a touchdown with 4:56 remaining. He nearly scored another in the final few minutes. There was just no way he could do it all himself.
John Marshall had just 55 total yards outside of Lee’s production.
That’s what pleased the Chargers the most.
“We knew we had to eliminate the other guys,” Heritage Hall coach Brett Bogert said. “We couldn’t let anyone else hurt us besides him. And 280 and three is impressive. He’s going to do that. But 20 is the number that matters the most.”