Colonel ends skid in a rush

AMERICAN CORNER — James Jackson did a lot of preaching in practice this week.

A whole lot of preaching.

“We’ve been preaching all week, the backs hitting the holes,” Colonel Richardson High’s head football coach said. “They’ve been running past the holes, or cutting out too early. So tonight they actually hit the holes and stayed in the holes, and they found green. They found a lot of green.”

Ja’Zir Dickerson returned the opening kickoff 75 yards for a touchdown and Derrick Mitchell ran for three touchdowns Friday night, as the Colonels celebrated homecoming with a 56-0 shellacking of Lancaster, Virginia.

“Coach James preached to me at practice, ‘You stay in the wedge on the kick return,’” Dickerson said. “He was like, ‘It’s going to open up.’ We watched film, seen they didn’t tackle very well. So they kicked it to me and I just knew I had to get in the wedge and take one home and bring the energy.”

Dickerson grabbed the opening kickoff, moved upfield, then broke left and down the home sideline to give Colonel (2-3) a 6-0 lead with only 13 seconds off the clock. Morgan Demir drilled the first of his four point-after kicks.

“That’s big,” Jackson said of Dickerson’s game-opening score. “Anytime you come out and you score right off the jump then you make a team a little nervous. Then you don’t know what’s coming at you.

“We set that up all week,” Jackson continued. “I was watching their special teams on film and I told our guys that ‘They don’t stay in their lanes, and if we set it up, we can return the opening kickoff.’ And we did. That definitely set the tone for the rest of the night. That brought the energy.”

Colonel, which snapped a three-game losing streak, scored on all six of its first-half possessions in addition to Dickerson’s opening romp.

Mitchell, who carried five times for 113 yards, scored his first touchdown from 3 yards out with 6:17 left in the first quarter. Quarterback Tarron Hammond ran in the two-point conversion for a 15-0 lead.

Hammond squeezed into the end zone on the Colonels’ next possession and watched Demir convert his second PAT for a 22-0 lead after one quarter.

“They had to bring back the intensity they had in Week 1,” Jackson said in reference to Colonel’s 55-0 win over Washington. “And I needed the team that played Kent Island (a 38-33 loss) to play the same way tonight, but come out with a win. I think they listened. They answered the call.”

Dickerson, who also finished with 113 yards rushing on just three carries, and who had a first-quarter punt return for a touchdown erased by a penalty, was sprung for a 64-yard touchdown run with 9:46 left in the second quarter. Collin Brewer bulled in for the two-point conversion and a 30-0 lead.

Colonel scored three more touchdowns in a little over 5 minutes to close the first half. Hammond hit Carter Turbitt with a 30-yard touchdown pass, Mitchell scored on a 31-yard burst around right end, and Chatydrick Pickrom seemingly moved the bulk of Lancaster’s defense during an 11-yard touchdown run up the middle that gave Colonel a 50-0 halftime lead.

Mitchell scored the only touchdown of the second half when he broke loose for a 37-yard touchdown jaunt in the third quarter.

“We came out with a lot more energy and we played as a team,” Mitchell said. “We blocked for each other. We did everything we were supposed to do. Great blocking.”

Jackson agreed.

“They did a tremendous job tonight,” Jackson said of his offensive line. “I’ve been looking for the o line all year. Tonight we were running as one unit. It wasn’t one side here and one side there. It was everybody working for us tonight with our o line.”

Colonel stopped Lancaster (2-4) six times of fourth down and forced two punts. Lancaster’s other possession ended with the first-half clock running down.