MOOREFIELD, WV—Strasburg junior Quincy Williams returned from injury on Friday and made the most of it.
Williams ran for over 200 yards for the second time this season and helped Strasburg to a 37-6 non-district road victory over Moorefield.
“It feels good to be back,” Williams said. “It was pretty hard. I didn’t want to miss that game. …I’m not really surprised (about the rushing yards). When you have an O-line like this. Anybody can rush for 200 yards.”
Williams finished with 225 rushing yards on just eight carries and four touchdowns. Williams said a lot of credit goes to the offensive line.
“They’re great,” Williams said of his offensive line. “I never get touched, honestly. They’re great up front.”
The Rams (3-1) came out strong. After forcing a Moorefield punt to start the game, they needed only two plays to take the lead.
Williams ran to the outside and went down the sidelines for a 39-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 8:59 left in the opening quarter.
“I remember seeing an open hole,” Williams said. “The line’s great. It was just an open field.”
Strasburg was forced to punt on its second possession. Moorefield fumbled a snap on a punt attempt, which gave Strasburg the ball at the Moorefield 35 to start its third possession.
Williams took it in from 35 yards out on the next play for a 14-0 lead 2:54 left in the first quarter.
Strasburg offensive/defensive linemen Jacob Stickley said the linemen take a lot of pride in having a running back go for over 200 yards in a game.
“When we run around there and we’re blocking and we see Quincy just take off, go up field, it’s the best feeling ever because you see wide open field and you know he’s gone,” Stickley said. “You know he’s going in the end zone. And it makes you feel better because, you know you get a little break too. And you get to get off on the sideline and then go back out there on defense and just really smack somebody in the mouth.”
The Rams extended the lead on the first play of the second quarter. Strasburg senior quarterback Brayden Hough connected with junior tight end Carson Duckworth for a 21-yard touchdown pass and a 21-0 lead with 11:51 left in the first half.
Moorefield (0-4) put together a solid drive on the next possession but bobbled the snap on a field goal attempt.
The Rams and the Yellow Jackets traded turnovers on the next two possessions. Hough intercepted a pass from Moorefield’s Cyrus Kump at the Strasburg 23.
On the very next play, Williams scored on a 77-yard touchdown run to give the Rams a 27-0 lead with 3:43 left in the first half.
“We challenged the guys to come out in the first half,” Strasburg head football coach Tripp Lamb said. “I feel like we’ve been slow the past couple weeks in the first half. So we challenged them to come out in the first half and start getting after it from the very beginning. I thought we did that. I thought the offensive line really opened up some holes. The backs hit it hard. We still had a turnover and a couple penalties, and we’ve got to clean that stuff up. You’re only going to be so good when you turn the ball over and have penalties and give yards away.”
Williams capped off his scoring with a 28-yard touchdown run with 10:44 left in the third quarter for a 34-0 lead.
Strasburg junior kicker Pablo Mora hit a 27-yard field goal with 15 seconds left in the third quarter for a 37-0 lead. Moorefield’s Bill Lewis scored on a 4-yard touchdown run with 41 seconds left in the game to complete the scoring for the night.
“Overall, I thought we played really well,” Lamb said. “It was good to see a lot of those young guys in the second half get out there and get to play. Those guys practice real hard all week. So it was good to see those guys get to play. It was a good team win.”
The Rams ran for 365 yards and had 386 yards of total offense. Strasburg also had a strong defensive game. Strasburg held Moorefield to 148 yards of total offense.
“I feel like we’ve kind of been dragging a little bit defensively,” Lamb said. “We definitely stepped it up today. We were making the right calls. We were talking more. Our stunts looked a little bit better. And I think our linebackers really started to get downhill, which is something we’ve been working on. And coming out at the beginning of the season, I think our linebackers were kind of playing sideways a little bit. But I think tonight those guys were playing downhill and it showed.”
The Rams play at Turner Ashby next week in another big non-district game. Strasburg lost to Broadway 28-20 in the second game of the season, and Stickley said that game was a wake-up call for the team.
“That loss against Broadway really got us back in our mojo,” Stickley said. “It hasn’t gotten us all the way to how we need to be yet, but we’re working on it. It’s the beginning of the season. But it definitely put us back on track, because the intensity in practice was not there before Broadway. And ever since then we’ve just picked it up.”