PREP FOOTBALL: West Point blows past Good Hope 37-0
GOOD HOPE — West Point came, saw and conquered Friday night at James W. Shabel Stadium.
The Warriors rolled up 393 yards of offense, held Good Hope to 78 total yards and dominated their county opponent from start to finish en route to a 37-0 road victory.
Coach Don Farley’s squad, which improved to 5-3 following the wonderful performance, has now won its past seven matchups against Cullman County competition dating back to 2013.
Good enough?
“Absolutely,” Farley said. “You always know it’s going to be tough against Good Hope, but we challenged our kids at practice this week. We knew we couldn’t dwell on what happened against Mortimer Jordan last Friday. Just like now we can’t dwell on what happened in this win. We’ve got one more region game next week against Curry. I think we’ll enjoy this one for a bit, but it’ll be onto the next one really soon.”
Both teams punted on their first possessions, but West Point took over shortly afterward.
Quarterback Rylan Jones found Raylon Moore on fourth down for a 36-yard touchdown connection, which provided the Maroon and White a 7-0 lead following Steven Rodriguez’s extra point.
Rodriguez tacked on a 25-yard field goal in the second quarter to extend that cushion to 10-0 before Hunter Persall ripped off an 88-yard touchdown run to put the Warriors ahead 17-0 after another Rodriguez extra point.
A 2-yard scoring plunge by Persall right before the half made it 24-0 West Point heading into the locker room.
“We wanted to mix it up and keep them off balance,” Farley said. “They had a stout gameplan early. They went out and took some things away from us that we like to do. But we made some adjustments and did what we needed to do to win the game. We didn’t control the line of scrimmage as much as I wanted us to, but I thought everybody on the field did a pretty good job overall.”
Jones hit Persall on an 11-yard swing pass, while Brandon Woods punched it in from 1 yard out in the third quarter to wrap up the scoring for the Maroon and White in the one-sided contest.
West Point’s suffocating defense, which yielded just seven yards during the second half, held the Red and White to one yard or less on 19 of their near 40 offensive snaps.
Not a bad day at the office.
“I thought our defense played really well,” Farley said. “Coach Miller, coach Farley, coach Boyd, coach Hunter and coach Moss did a good job with the gameplan and with putting our guys in the position to make plays.”
Persall capped off his outing with 189 yards and two scores on 15 carries, while Jones completed 11 of 14 passes for 159 yards and two touchdowns.
Persall also led his squad in receiving with four catches, while Moore, Cameron Bates, Austin Dubberly, Rodriguez and Kolton Easterwood each grabbed at least one pass from Jones. Woods, Jones and Brayden Martin accounted for 45 rushing yards as well.
Dubberly, Woods, Levi Farley, Dalton White, Matthew McDonald and Jaiden Philyaw were excellent contributors on the defensive side.
Good Hope, which fell to 3-5 with the loss, was paced by Bailey Quick’s 39 rushing yards. Matthew Dixon and Will Dickerson both produced 24 yards on the ground.
The Warriors travel to Curry next Friday, where they can notch the No. 3 seed in Class 5A, Region 6 with a victory.
The Raiders, meanwhile, wrap up 4A, Region 6 play at Dora.