November 10, 2007

Valentine’s day? 376 receiving yards with 5 TDs in Nitro romp

By Dave Hickman, Staff writer, Charleston Gazette

CLARKSBURG — Remember that 12-catch, 288-yard, four-touchdown performance by Marcos Valentine last week against Princeton? Apparently it was little more than a warm-up.

He had nearly that in the first half Friday night in the first round of the playoffs.

When all was said and done, Valentine caught 15 passes for a mind-numbing 376 yards and five touchdowns as No. 13 Nitro routed fourth-seeded Robert C. Byrd 52-31 in the first round of the Class AAA playoffs.

The win sends the Wildcats (7-4) into next weekend’s quarterfinals against neighboring St. Albans (10-1), a team Nitro beat 58-14 a little over a month ago.

Quarterback Michael Scott, of course, had something to do with Valentine’s numbers. He completed 20-of-32 passes for 451 yards and threw all five of his TDs to Valentine.

For Nitro coach Scott Tinsley, who is used to seeing his team put up Playstation-like numbers, even those were jaw-dropping.

“That is amazing,’’ Tinsley said when told of Valentine’s catches and yards. “I didn’t have any idea he had those kinds of numbers. When you watch each individual catch, you think, ‘That was pretty good.’ You don’t even think about what it adds up to.’’

Watching Scott and Valentine Friday night on the high-crown grass turf at Robert C. Byrd was like watching the 7-on-7 tournaments they played in during the summer. The two combined on touchdown passes of 28, 43, 50, 65 and 32 yards.

Which one was the best? Don’t ask Valentine.

“They [his teammates] seemed to like the long one down there,’’ the 6-foot-2 senior said, pointing to where he caught both a perfect 50-yard strike behind the RCB defense and a 20-yard out that he turned into the 43-yard score. “I don’t know. All I do is count on my blockers to get downfield and then I look for green grass.’’

In addition to his five touchdown passes, Scott also ran for two first-half scores. That’s seven touchdowns accounted for, so it was easy for Valentine to pass the credit on to his quarterback.

“I give all the credit to Mike,’’ Valentine said. “When the line blocks and he has time, he’ll complete passes. I just happen to catch some of them.’’

Nitro salted the game away early, rolling out to a 35-7 halftime lead. There wasn’t much normal about Nitro’s first half, but then again there isn’t much that’s normal about the Wildcats, who at one point kicked off out of bounds twice in a row after a touchdown — two of their 11 first-half penalties — and so on the third attempt tried an onside kick.

It worked, as did everything else the Wildcats tried.

It was also a half in which Nitro punted four times, had those 11 penalties for 95 yards and actually had four possessions on which it didn’t make a first down. On the other five possessions, though, the Wildcats scored on two Scott runs and three Scott TD passes to Valentine. Scott had 293 yards passing in the first two quarters and Valentine caught 10 passes for 245 yards.

The second half was merely going through the motions. Byrd (10-1), which was the only unbeaten Class AAA team heading into the playoffs, scored on its first two possessions of the third quarter but never seriously threatened to stop Scott and Valentine and get back into the game.

To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.