Mackall, Calvert defeat Stone
Running back has over 200 yards and has 5 touchdowns in win for Cavaliers
Among those who were in awe following Dre Mackall’s five-touchdown performance in Calvert’s 48-20 win over visiting Thomas Stone on Friday night was teammate Justin Morsell.
“The dude’s an animal,” said Morsell, a defensive end. “I mean, hands down he’s the best football player I’ve seen. I’m so blessed to have him on our team.”
The Cavaliers (3-2, 2-0 SMAC Chesapeake) moved a game ahead of Stone and is now tied with Westlake for first place in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference’s Chesapeake Division. The Wolverines kept pace with a 27-6 win over Great Mills.
“The field was a little sloppy, but our kids played really well with the conditions,” Calvert head coach Rick Sneade said . “[These are] two teams that like to run between the tackles and downhill, and the success they have running the football with some of their athletes I felt good about our ability to slow them down a bit. And I felt good about our ability to run the ball, so it was a good night.”
“We played great,” Calvert defensive back David Allwine said. “We’ve been talking all week about playing as a team and a [brotherhood]. The first two losses we had we were pretty shaky, but we stepped it up and we knew what to do.”
The Cavaliers, who never trailed in the game, led 19-17 at halftime but blew the game open by outscoring the Cougars 29-3 over the final two quarters.
Stone (3-2, 1-1) had won the previous three matchups between the two games and hold a 7-6 edge since 2004. The teams did not face each other in 2012.
“We’re a little disappointed in our play,” Cougars head coach Danny Ripple said. “I think we could have played a bit better but, regardless our kids played hard. And like we just told them, ‘We put this one behind us and move on to the big one at Huntingtown next week.’”
“I feel we played a good game besides making a couple of minor mistakes,” said Stone receiver Jaylen Kelley, who hauled in a 17-yard touchdown pass late in the opening quarter for the Cougars’ first points of the game. “But we’re going to bounce back next week and move on.”
Mackall, who had three touchdowns last week in an upset win
over Lackey in Week 4, scored on runs of 13, 7, 18, 11 and 5 yards.
“My line was clicking and everything was working and they opened up the holes almost every play,” said Mackall, who never scored more than two touchdowns in a game in pound ball. “I’m actually not [tired] now. I feel good.”
“I wasn’t surprised,” Sneade said. “Our offensive coordinator [Chris] Turner was looking at the field conditions and he was thinking we would be hardpressed for us to get outside so we were going to stay between the tackles, and Dre’s pretty effective at running between the tackles.”
Mackall, a senior, finished with 213 yards on 26 carries. He had 94 yards and three touchdowns on just nine carries in the first quarter. He also added a 2-point conversion.
“We’ve known he’s a good back, we’ve known that for two years now,” Ripple said. “He ran well and he has a heck of an offensive line that was really coached up and ready to go, so we weren’t surprised at all.”
Calvert led 19-7 midway through the second quarter, but Trent Gaskins scored on an 11yard run to complete an 11-play, 75-yard drive, during which the Cavaliers committed a pair of 15yard pass interference penalties.
After Gaskins tackled Mackall for a loss on fourth down, Stone took over with 57 seconds left in the half and no timeouts. A few plays later, the Cougars hurried to the line, barely got the snap off and Nicco Vargas booted a 41-yard field goal with no time left to make it 19-17. Vargas later added a 22-yarder.
“That was ridiculous,” Sneade said. “I was honestly worried
those [last] three series because we didn’t have any more timeouts and I could feel our kids were playing out of their minds and not in a good way. They were scrambling and it was scaring me to death, so for them to go down and execute that play was really nerve-wracking for us.”
Calvert regained the momentum and never looked back when Mackall scored on the teams’ first offensive series of the second half.
“It was a tale of momentum,” Ripple said. “They came out and had all the momentum for a while and we caught our wave leading into the half, but then they regained the momentum and we could never get it back after that.”
Calvert running backs TJ Prather and Lucas Bernard also scored.
The Cavaliers’ defense forced three turnovers, including an interception by Allwine, which resulted in 14 points.
“I knew our [defensive] end was going to put pressure on [Stone quarterback Ronnie Carter] and when he threw it I was right there,” Allwine said
of the pick, which he returned 48 yards to the Cougars 5-yard line.
Stone’s running backs were held to 157 yards on the ground and Carter and Cole Lucia combined to complete just 5 of 17 passes. The Cougars are scheduled to be at Huntingtown at 7 p.m. Friday versus a Hurricanes squad that fell for the first time this season in Week 5, 31-6 to North Point.
Calvert will play McDonough at 7 p.m. Friday in a contest that will be played at Stone because of field issues at McDonough.
“We knew they were going to come out and play hard and bring it, so we put our big boy pants on,” Morsell said. “We’re doing well but we’re not content though. We’re all going to keep working and get better as a unit.”
“Our defense is playing solid,” Sneade said. “We try and put them in a situation where we don’t overcoach them and allow them to play good football, and the more you can do that and the more they can play a fundamental game the more they start gaining confidence.”