ELKVIEW, W.Va. — Herbert Hoover spotted Princeton 14 points before dominating play in the second and third quarters to defeat the Tigers, 31-21 in a matchup of Class AAA state title contenders.
The No. 3 Tigers (5-3) opened the game with a pair of touchdown drives and a pair of defensive stops to build a 14-0 lead after the opening quarter. R.J. Coatney scored on a 9-yard run and Jake Belcher connected with Alex Cox on a 42-yard pass to hand the Huskies their largest deficit in any game this season.
However, top-ranked Herbert Hoover (8-0) outscored the defending state champions 24-0 in the second stanza. David Robinson Jr. had two touchdown runs (36 and 13 yards) sandwiched around a 41-yard scoring run from Peyton Grigsby. Jackson Chandler’s 25-yard field goal on the final play of the half gave Hoover a 24-14 halftime lead.
“We played hard and cleaned some stuff up. I liked our second quarter and about a series of the third,” said Herbert Hoover head coach Joey Fields. “We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to become a better team and learn from this. A lot of individual, we worry about stats more than we probably worry about the win right now, which is a dangerous thing.”
Robinson added an 11-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to extend the HHHS lead to 31-14. The Army commit rushed for 233 yards in the game.
“Physicality and handing the ball to [Robinson]. We got a little creative offensively once we got up. Shame on us. We’ve done that about three times this season and we played sloppy. We’ve got to get going with our run game and get the ball out to our athletes. We’ve got a lot of them but we’ve got to be able to use them and not have procedural problems and miscommunication.”
Princeton drew within ten points with 5:30 to play on a 3-yard touchdown tote from Aaron Hood. Those would be the only points Hoover allowed in the game’s final three quarters.
“We had better run fits and our guys just did their job. I wasn’t anything schematic. I thought we had a good plan. We just rallied to the ball and tackled better. We were a little antsy early in the game. But I thought our guys played better as the game went on.”
Playing with scoreboard pressure in the second half for the first time this season, the Huskies remained the only unbeaten team in Class AAA.
“I don’t think we responded to it well. We definitely have to respond to it because there’s a lot of good teams. I think the teams you will see in the first weekend of December are the teams that do right on and off the field. We’ve got to do a better job with that.”