SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On Herbert Hoover’s first play from scrimmage Friday night at South Charleston, accomplished Huskies’ running back David Robinson broke off a 15-yard run. Robinson followed it with runs of 14 and 23 yards, respectively, on the second and third plays.
His strong start was a sign of things to come.
Robinson rushed 26 times for 193 yards and five scores, including each of the first three touchdowns to help lead the way in Herbert Hoover’s resounding 48-12 win against the Black Eagles.
With the result, the Class AAA No. 1 Huskies improve to 5-0, while the No. 5 Black Eagles fall to 4-2.
“He’s the best player on the field. It shows every week, and it shows in big games,” Herbert Hoover coach Joey Fields said. “In big games, you have to lean on your guy, but so many other guys did jobs that we asked them to do that isn’t the norm for us each week to beat a good team.”
South Charleston coach Donnie Mays took it a step further after seeing his team struggle to slow Robinson.
“You have to give credit to David Robinson. He’s probably the best player in the state of West Virginia, and he showed that he’s that good,” Mays said. “We just have to be better. We have to tackle better and pursue the ball better.”
Robinson capped off his team’s first series with a 2-yard touchdown run, and the first of six point-after kicks from Jackson Chandler left the visitors with a 7-0 lead.
It was more of the same for Robinson and the Huskies alike on the team’s second series, which started 4 yards shy of midfield and ended with Robinson’s 3-yard TD run. Hoover’s second TD was set up by Peyton Grigsby’s 25-yard pass to Knosean Hampton.
A 14-point lead grew to 21 with 4:16 left in the first half when Robinson crossed the goal line on a 3-yard run, though SCHS answered with its first of two touchdowns on Ceno Riley’s 30-yard run. The point-after attempt was blocked, leaving the Black Eagles with a 15-point deficit that remained at halftime after they stopped HHHS on downs inside the red zone 38 seconds before halftime.
Herbert Hoover 21, South Charleston 0, 4:16 2Q
Robinson 3-yard touchdown run. #wvprepfb pic.twitter.com/Tc39vTiMuR
— Greg Carey (@gcarey938) October 2, 2026
Any momentum on the side of South Charleston vanished quickly into the second half, with Grigsby racing for a 68-yard touchdown run on the fourth play from scrimmage of the third quarter.
A high snap on what was to be a Huskies’ punt allowed South Charleston to start its second series of the second half from the Huskies’ 29, but the Black Eagles wound up with a turnover on downs from that very spot.
Hoover then drove 71 yards to make it a four-score game for the first time when Robinson reached the end zone on a 13-yard run to make it 34-6.
Trevaun Tyson’s 8-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter brought SCHS to within 22, before Robinson recorded his fifth and final TD of the contest with 8:54 remaining via a 55-yard run.
“I’m very proud of him and very proud of our guys up front,” Fields said. “They were challenged all offseason and they’ve been challenged all year, and we continue to get better.”
Turay Rush returned a punt 42 yards for a TD to cap the scoring.
The Huskies totaled 389 yards of offense, including 331 rushing on 37 attempts. Grigsby finished with nine carries for 134 yards and completed 8-of-14 passes for 58 yards.
South Charleston standout Malakhi Hope rushed six times for 19 yards on the game’s opening series, but touched the ball only once more the rest of the way as he continues to battle a nagging injury.
“He hasn’t been healthy for two or three weeks. I’m trying to get him going, but it’s not working right now,” Mays said.
Tyson paced a ground game that amassed 125 yards with 77, but the Black Eagles completed only one pass among 19 attempts in defeat.
“We’re playing a lot of man-to-man,” Fields said. “We’re not out-coaching anybody. We’re asking players to do what they do best and that’s get up there and challenge guys and play really good defense.”
Both teams were heavily penalized throughout. The Huskies were flagged 16 times for 150 yards to South Charleston’s 12 penalties for 100 yards.
“We wanted to play with emotion, but we didn’t want to be emotional, and I should’ve been looking in the mirror on that,” said Fields, who was assessed a flag in the first quarter. “We have to clean up some things, but in an emotional game, our guys played really hard and responded the best way we could throughout.”
The Black Eagles’ Hamajae Martin had a 70-yard touchdown run negated by a holding penalty and they dropped what would’ve been a long completion for a likely score as well.
“When you have a pass in the end zone for a touchdown and drop it and then a penalty calls back another one, those things bite you in the butt,” Mays said. “But credit them. They’re a good football team. Everybody picked them in the preseason to be No. 1 and they’ve proved they’re pretty good.”