Bulldogs Pound Blues, 48-8

Bulldogs Pound Blues, 48-8 PM Concludes Three-Game Road Trip

Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will. The Parry McCluer High School football team probably thought Mr. Murphy was hanging around last Friday night.

Not much went right for the Fighting Blues (3-2) in their third straight road game at Luray. PM mustered only 121 yards of total offense, 62 of those yards coming on a touchdown drive in the fourth quarter, and committed three turnovers, dropping a 48-8 decision to the Bulldogs (3-2).

“Nothing went our way at all Friday night,” said PM head coach Jeremiah Brockenbrough, whose team went 1-2 on the extended road trip. “It was a mismatch from the word go. We never got off the bus.”

Things started going awry for the Blues from their opening drive. Already trailing 6-0 after Luray’s Ryan Jenkins opened the scoring with a 41-yard TD run early in the first quarter, PM’s first drive stalled when twice the Blues failed to pick up a yard and turned the ball over on downs. PM also threw two interceptions in the first half, but the biggest blow came midway through the second quarter.

Luray turned the first PM interception into a 7-yard TD run from Caleb Cyphert, with the two-point conversion upping the Bulldog lead to 14-0. On the ensuing squib kick, the Blues watched the ball roll around until it was covered by the Bulldogs at the PM 22-yard line. Five plays later, Jenkins scored again from the 1-yard line, giving the Bulldogs two TDs in a span of less than two minutes.

“That just goes to show you the kind of mental lapse we had Friday night,” said Brockenbrough of the recovered kickoff. “Mentally, [our layers] weren’t there Friday night. I guess that’s on me as a coach, but I don’t think they were prepared for that Friday night, mentally.”

“If that game did anything,” the PM coach continued, “it should have opened our eyes that when we are lifting weights in the summertime, everybody needs to be bought in. You could tell Luray had been doing that. Their line created some big holes.”

The Bulldogs weren’t done there. After its second interception, Luray, which held the ball for over 30 minutes in the contest, chewed up more than five minutes of the clock and capped that drive with another Cyphert TD, this one from nine yards out, and took a 28-0 halftime lead.

The Blues ran only 17 plays in the first half, accumulating a mere 49 yards and just three first downs. PM managed only 81 rushing yards in the game, 164 yards below their season average.

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs were methodical. Luray scored on all but two of its possessions in the game, with one drive thwarted by a fumble deep in PM territory and another as they knelt twice in the fourth quarter to run out the clock. In the second half, the Bulldogs scored three more TDs on runs, one in the third quarter by Cubbage and two in the fourth quarter by Jenkins and Carson Bryant.

The Bulldogs piled up 330 yards on the ground. Jenkins led the way with 185 yards and three TDs on 24 carries, while Bryant carried nine times for 71 yards.

“They ran downhill,” said the PM coach. “They say they are going to run right at you, and that’s what they did.”

Quarterback Nathan Glass, who scored PM’s only TD with a 17-yard scamper with 1:42 remaining in the game, paced the Blues with 35 yards on four carries.

After the extended road trip, the Blues finally return home this Friday night when they play host to Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy (0-5) at 7 p.m. at Bobby Williams Field, as PM introduces its 2025 Athletic Hall of Fame class.

“We need to get back to work this week and sharpen our skills a little bit,” said Brockenbrough. “We need to have a good outing to get ready for our Pioneer District opener [at Narrows on Oct. 10].”

PM 00088 LHS 6 22 7 13 48 First Quarter LHS – Jenkins 41 run (run failed) Second Quarter LHS – Cyphert 7 run (Cubbage pass form Haddock) LHS – Jenkins 1 run (Cyphert run) LHS – Cyphert 9 run (kick failed) Third Quarter LHS – Cubbage 1 run (Ellis kick) Fourth Quarter LHS – Jenkins 6 run (kick failed) LHS – Bryant 19 run (Ellis kick) PM – Glass 17 run (Glass run) PM LHS

Rushes-yards 27-81 51-330 Passing yards 40 0 Comp-Att-Int 2-9-2 0-3-0

INDIVIDUALSTATISTICS

RUSHING – PM, Glass 4-35, Shafer 9-22, Snider 6-11, Fleming 1-5, Brockenbrough 2-5, Z. Dunn 1-4, J. Dunn 1-0, Team 3-(-1). LHS, Jenkins 24-185, Bryant 9-71, Cyphert 6-38, Cubbage 3-17, Beahm 4-16, Haddock 2-7, Team 3-(-4).

PASSING – PM, Glass 2-9-2 40. LHS, Haddock 0-3-0 0. RECEIVING –PM, Snider 2-40. LHS, none.