By Phil Murphy
Senior Multimedia/Content Manager, Washington D.C. Metro Area
**Click the links at the top-left for photos and videos from this National District game!!**
**Interactive box score, statistics below**
Entering this season, Hayfield won three times in its last 32 games.
In 2009, it has only taken the Hawks four games to equal that 32-week total.
Hayfield weathered a late run — spearheaded by an impressive season debut for Patriot senior quarterback Sam Nottingham — to beat Yorktown, 27-19, in Arlington Friday.
The Hawks have scored 132 points in their four games this season.
That’s the most productive four-game stretch since Weeks 6-9 of 2000, the last year Hayfield made the playoffs.
“We’ve got kids who can make plays,” 11th-year Hawk coach Billy Pugh said. “That’s how we’re going to win ballgames. We’re scoring points and making plays because we’ve got great athletes. I’ve got three great football players on offense.”
Those three players are the featured pieces of Hayfield’s triple option.
Senior quarterback Anton McCallum, senior running back Rayshawn Rigans and sophomore running back Steve Lynch have scored — or thrown for, in McCallum’s case — 17 of the team’s 19 touchdowns this season.
Friday, it was Rigans that stole the limelight.
He carried 15 times for 148 yards and two touchdowns, including a 59-yard first-quarter dash that Rigans capped by a near-unstoppable stop-and-go deke on a Yorktown defensive back.
“I just go out, work hard and help my team win,” said Rigans, the only player in the Northern Region with multiple touchdowns in every game this season. “That’s the result we get. If I have to score two touchdowns a game, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Added Pugh: “There ain’t a better player around in space than that kid. There isn’t a question in my mind. He makes people miss.
“If you kick the ball to him, you’re crazy — absolutely insane.”
And if McCallum keeps his current pace of interceptions, the same case could be made for quarterbacks that throw in his vicinity.
A free safety as well as Hayfield’s quarterback, he has three interceptions in the last two weeks, two Friday.
After underthrowing a receiver on offense on 4th-and-3 in the second quarter, McCallum intercepted a pass on the first play of the ensuing Patriot possession and returned it 42 yards to the Patriot 3-yard line.
He threw a two-yard touchdown to senior Nazrul Islam two plays thereafter.
Then, with Yorktown driving to take the lead with 5 minutes, 35 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, McCallum intercepted another Patriot pass, this time at the Hawk 14-yard line, and returned it 52 yards.
Two plays later, Rigans was in the end zone for his second score.
“I like to make plays on defense,” said McCallum, who scouts project as a defensive back in college. “I make plays for the whole team, that’s why they look at me as a leader.”
Though Yorktown fell to 1-3 overall, 0-1 in the National District, with the loss, the Patriots still project as a playoff team, especially after Nottingham’s return to the lineup.
After missing the first three weeks with an illness, Nottingham saw his first action of the season Friday night.
He went 9-for-14 passing for 127 yards and two touchdowns with three interceptions. Including his 13-yard touchdown run that put the Pats on the scoreboard, he captained all three scoring drives, despite splitting possessions with sophomore Jordan Smith.
Though Yorktown should be improved with the return of Nottingham, the key piece of Patriot coach Bruce Hanson‘s newly-installed spread offense, his absence was one of a litany of injuries the team has dealt with this year.
“It’s going to make [the offense] better, but we like little Jordan. We’ll use him at times,” said Hanson, the longest-tenured active coach in the Northern Region. “We’ve been thrown an awful lot of curveballs this year. We didn’t have [Erik] Cardillo last week, we didn’t have [Mike] Veith last week, now we get them back. It’s so hard.
“You lose them, you get them back, your continuity gets thrown out of whack … We didn’t know until Tuesday that we had Sam.”
Email: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
Box Score 1 2 3 4 — F
Hayfield 14 6 0 7 — 27
Yorktown 0 6 13 0 — 19
Scoring Plays
1Q — HF — McCallum 1 run (Souphida kick) — 6:41
1Q — HF — Rigans 59 run (Souphida kick) — 1:58
2Q — YK — Nottingham 13 run (pass failed) — 6:35
2Q — HF — Islam 2 from McCallum (kick failed) — 2:56
3Q — YK — Bartholomew 30 from Nottingham (Dola kick) — 8:48
3Q — YK — Veith 29 from Nottingham (kick blocked) — 6:17
4Q — HF — Rigans 31 run (Souphida kick) — 4:43
Passing
HF – McCallum – 4-for-10, 69 yards, TD; Stewart – 0-for-1, 0 yards. YK – Nottingham – 9-for-14, 127 yards, 2 TD, 3 INT; Smith – 4-for-6, 52 yards, INT.
Rushing
HF – Rigans – 15 car, 148 yards, 2 TD; Lynch – 16 car, 35 yards; McCallum –
10 car, 27 yards, TD; Fells – 3 car, 2 yards. YK – Doles – 12 car, 69 yards; Cardillo – 11 car, 42 yards; Smith – 11 car, 36 yards;
Nottingham – 12 car, 29 yards, TD; Banks – 1 car, -5 yards.
Receiving
HF – Islam – 2 rec, 42 yards, TD; Rigans – 1 rec, 20 yards; Knudson – 1 rec, 7 yards. YK – Bartholomew – 5 rec, 65 yards, TD; D’Addario – 4 rec, 38 yards; Veith – 2
rec, 38 yards, TD; Ke. Bailey – 1 rec, 26 yards; Bernhardt – 1 rec, 12 yards.
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