On Friday Oct. 21 varsity football decimated the Stony Point Tigers 49-20 bringing the Warriors one step closer to a playoff berth sitting at 6-2 on the year. With a strong and fast start from the Warriors and a no-room-for-error defensive mindset, the Warriors didn’t give the Tigers a chance to catch up. However the Warriors still showed weakness with more than 145 penalty yards given up, something that the Warriors know district-leading Vandegrift will exploit in their coming up in two weeks. Their defense however kept the mistakes at a minimum and made up for the penalties.

“[Defensively] we really saw something while watching tape this week,” Warrior Head Coach Anthony Wood said. “When we see an opportunity we take it, so we put in Fred [Fisher ‘24] and it definitely worked out in our favor.”

Within the first two minutes on the game clock, the Warriors were up 21-0 on the Tigers with a combination of a trick play from Fisher, a breakout fumble recovery, and a rushing touchdown littered with broken tackles by Demani Stewart ‘24. Stewart left the field as the District’s leading scorer accumulating for more points than any other player. The rest of the quarter was an excellent show of what the Warrior defense has worked all season to achieve, with only one first down from Stony Point the whole quarter.

Going into the second quarter the Warriors were picking up even more steam on both offense and defense. A mixture of swift offensive drives ending in TDs, and an interception on the defensive end, were the juice that put the Warriors 35 points over the Tigers at the end of the first half.

“I think one of the things that happens when you get a big lead is that you can lose focus,” Coach Wood said. “What our guys know is that you don’t play based on the score, you play based on how you know you can play the game.”

The beginning of the second half looked no brighter for the Tigers as the Warriors came out looking to chew the clock in order to shut Stony Point out. The Warriors did just that with running with high success rates and quick easy yards, storming down the field with a 7 minute, 94 yard touchdown drive that would cap the Warriors stellar offensive performance at 49 points.

The final quarter of the game started and ended with the second-team unit for the Warriors, in the hopes to give the less experienced players on the team game time, as well as to insure no injuries to the starters. However, this did not prove to prevent any injuries as both teams began to tire, and each side took their hits. Fatigue took a toll on the Warrior defense with the Stony Point starters putting 20 points on the Warriors throughout the fourth quarter of the game. Although still not enough to match what the Warriors had in the first few minutes of the game, the Warriors could not hold on to what would have been the second shutout of the season.

“I think what we are figuring out is that we are pretty good,” Coach Wood said. “We definitely would like for them to keep working and getting even better heading into playoff season”

The Warriors will return to action next week, Friday, Oct. 27, battling against the Manor Mustangs at the KRAC.