November 16, 2007

SA needs to do better job vs. Nitro air game

By Rick Ryan, Assistant Sports Editor, Charleston Gazette

To get past neighboring rival Nitro and advance to the playoff semifinals, St. Albans will have to play over its head. And it has nothing to do with the Red Dragons’ skill level.

St. Albans defenders will have to play the pass better than they did when the teams first met this season — a 58-14 Nitro victory on Oct. 5, which stands as the only loss so far for fifth-seeded SA (10-1).

Kickoff for their Class AAA playoff quarterfinal game is set for 7:30 Saturday night at Crawford Field in St. Albans.

The first time around, the Red Dragons’ smallish defenders couldn’t cover Nitro’s receiving tandem of 6-foot-2 Marcos Valentine and 6-4 Brett McClanahan. Michael Scott would simply lob the ball to an open area and let Valentine and McClanahan jump for it against SA defensive backs standing about 5-7 or 5-8.

Most of the time, Nitro won that battle. Scott completed 22-of-30 passes for 383 yards and five touchdowns with one interception. Valentine landed 10 passes for 262 yards and four TDs and McClanahan had five grabs for 64 yards.

“Nobody’s really been able to defend [Valentine] if the quarterback gets the ball there,’’ said SA coach Derek Christian.

Tinsley said the Red Dragons are using three new players in the secondary since the last time the teams played, all of them 5-10 — Duran Workman, Robert Bodie and Devon Thompson.

“Defensively, there will be three new guys we’re throwing against,’’ Tinsley said, “and it looks like they’re plugging in [Jamal] Carter at middle linebacker in pass situations and moving Chris Young to the nose to get more of a pass rush.’’

Instead of making wholesale changes in schemes, Christian said he hopes his defense can improve its execution against the 13th-seeded Wildcats (7-4), who eight times this season have scored at least 47 points.

“We’re going to do what we do,’’ he said, “and Scott’s going to do what he does. This late in the game, you can’t change up a lot. I don’t think anybody would. You can add a new wrinkle or two, but you can’t put in a lot of new stuff.’’

Tinsley said his team elected to play an unusual Saturday night game — and go against the WVU-Cincinnati telecast — not to rankle its old rival, but to allow some of its own injured players extra time to heal.

Mark Massey, whose 753 yards rushing and nine TDs dwarf the totals of the team’s other running backs, is still bothered by a muscle pull in his upper back suffered in the regular-season finale at Princeton. Massey carried twice for 8 yards last week in a win at Robert C. Byrd and only played a couple snaps on defense before being pulled.

“I don’t know what his status will be,’’ Tinsley said earlier in the week. “We want to give him every opportunity to get healthy. Against a team like St. Albans, you have to have the threat to run the ball or it will cause you problems.

“We started the week with four kids out — three of them starters and two of them going both ways. At times we’re short four kids on defense in practice. We thought the extra day might let them heal up.’’

Other defensive starters missing work this week for Nitro were linebackers Michael Evans and Lindsey Johnson.

To contact assistant sports editor Rick Ryan, use e-mail or call 348-5175.

AAA: Nitro-St. Albans by the numbers

RUSHING

Nitro:

Mark Massey 112 carries, 753 yards, 9 touchdowns

Michael Scott 88-242-8

Tyler Kennedy 28-221-1

St. Albans:

Marcus Guy 129-868-9

Gabe King 127-692-12

PASSING

Nitro: Scott 198-313, 11 interceptions, 3,719 yards, 45 TDs

St. Albans: T.J. Feazelle 60-104-5-806, 3 TDs

RECEIVING

Nitro: Marcos Valentine 88-1,847-27

Brett McClanahan 58-1,276-11

Mark Massey 18-163-5

Adam Howell 16-222-1

St. Albans:

Chaz Roy 19-325-2

Derek Bodie 16-191-0

Zach Hodges 11-114-0