Lancers victorious in easy win against Harrisonburg

After capturing their fourth consecutive Division 4, Region III championship with a surprisingly easy 47-22 victory over Harrisonburg, Amherst County’s football team prepares to host a team very similar to itself in Saturday’s Group AA, Division 4, semifinals.

Christiansburg, which took Salem to three overtimes before falling to 45-43 in the regular season, shut out the Spartans 13-0 in the Region IV final, eliminating one of Amherst’s closest postseason rivals.

“Christiansburg’s a very good football team with a very strong defense,” Lancers coach Cecil Phillips said. “They’re a mirror image of us. They run the same offense (Wing-T) and same defense (3-5-3) that we do.”

Amherst actually hosted Christiansburg and other teams from around the state in an offensive camp at Lancer Stadium over the summer.

“They run the Wing-T, too, and we talked about, wouldn’t it be something if we met again here in the state playoffs?” Phillips said at the time.

“We’re real excited,” Lancers junior Kirby Anderson added. “We know it’s going to be a humongous crowd. I look for it to be a great game. Christiansburg, they’ve got speed.”

Since taking over the quarterback spot from Anthony Rose early in the season, Anderson has found ways to get the ball in Rose’s hands as often as possible, as he did in Friday night’s Region III championship game against Harrisonburg.

The tandem combined on two plays — one on offense and one on defense — that helped turn an early deficit into a 47-22 blowout on a cold and blustery night at Lancer Stadium.

Trailing 3-0 on its own 36, after Amherst failed to pick up more than five yards on its first five rushing attempts, Anderson completed a screen pass right to Rose in space and he accelerated up the Lancers’ sideline for a 64-yard score.

“Anthony’s fast so he got outside and did what he does (with) great blocking by the wide receivers,” Anderson said.

“That relaxed our kids because we were on our heels,” Phillips added. “They did a good job defensively of taking away our sweep.”

Late in the first half, with the Lancers holding a commanding 33-3 lead, Rose hit Harrisonburg quarterback Jake Johnson from behind as 92 yards up the Lancers’ sideline for a 40-3 advantage.

“We play a very aggressive style of defense,” Phillips said. “Our kids are very physical, and swarming. They’re ball hawks — athletic and fast. We want to force turnovers and, with the athletes we have on defense, if we pick up a ball, we want to score on it.”

“Turnovers were the biggest thing in the game,” Harrisonburg coach Tim Sarver said. “We don’t normally turn the ball over like that.”

“Coach Sarver has a tremendous program and we expected a war for 48 minutes,” Phillips said.

The Blue Streaks (10-2), whose season ended for the third consecutive year with a loss to the Lancers (12-0) in the Region III playoffs, suffered a major blow when Michael Holmes, the state’s leading rusher with more than 2,700 yards, left the game and didn’t return.

“When Michael went out with a sprained ankle … it’s always tough to have a player of his ability go out,” Sarver said.

Phillips said that was a significant loss, but didn’t affect the way the Lancers played.

“It didn’t change our mentality,” he said. “We know we’ve got to play full throttle for 48 minutes.”

Amherst’s defense had done an excellent job of slowing down Holmes, the Region III offensive player of the year, before he got hurt, allowing him just 13 yards on six carries.

“We knew we had to make them one-dimensional,” Phillips said. “We had to contain Michael Holmes because he’s a phenomenal running back, a very powerful runner. We had to get to him before he got his legs going full speed.”

The Lancers turned on the afterburners for scores of 60 yards or more four times against the Blue Streaks.

“It was chilly tonight, but the kids did a tremendous job,” Phillips said. “They’ve been answering the bell at 7 p.m. for the past 12 Friday nights. We know we’re going to get a state championship effort every time we play and we need to respond with a state championship effort of our own.”