South Lakes Hangs Tough For A Half, But Falls to Unbeaten Madison

Madison High’s Warhawks gave South Lakes a full half of Friday night’s game at South Lakes to take charge. They gave the Seahawks a penalty to keep their first drive alive, then a fumble on Madison’s first play from scrimmage, then penalties on three long plays – two of which would’ve been touchdowns – to keep them in the game.

But when the Seahawks didn’t take charge, the Warhawks did. Madison scored on its first play from scrimmage after halftime, then grinded out two long drives to pull away from South Lakes for a 35-7 victory that kept the Warhawks unbeaten on the season at 8-0 and on top of the Concorde District at 3-0.

South Lakes, which lost its fourth straight, fell to 2-6 on the season, 0-3 in the Concorde, going into its Senior Day and final home game next Saturday against Centreville.

The Seahawks drew first blood. After that early fumble gave South Lakes the ball at the Madison 23, Nicholas Picarelli ran 21 yards to the 2 on a reverse, and Cody Wood scored his team-best 14th touchdown two plays later to make it 7-0 South Lakes less than three minutes into the game.

The Seahawks’ defense then provided a 3-and-out, but South Lakes couldn’t move and had to punt. Madison scored the next play on a 63-yard run by William Helvey off left tackle. The game stayed tied 7-7 until midway through the second quarter, when Madison took advantage of a controversial defensive pass interference penalty on South Lakes to push across a 7-yard TD run by Dominic Knicely.

South Lakes didn’t allow another first down the rest of the half, but the Seahawks picked up only one themselves and finished the half with just 57 total yards.

The Seahawks worked hard all week to prepare for Knicely, a speedy and strong 4-star recruit. They had limited him to 41 yards in the first half and kept him from getting started on the kind of long runs he has victimized all the Warriors’ opponents with this year.

“We did a good job of keeping him penned in,” said Nathan Deglel, the Seahawks’ stalwart defensive end, who had his best game yet on Friday night. “Our job was to closed each gap as he approached and just force him to keep choosing another gap, and we did a pretty good job of it. But he’s hard to keep penned in all night.”

Sure enough, on the first play after halftime, Knicely got loose off right tackle and sprinted for a 59-yard touchdown run. The score put the Seahawks down by two scores for the first time all night, but it caused a much bigger problem from Deglel’s standpoint.

“Our young bucks duck their heads when things go bad sometimes,” Deglel said. “They're good guys, but they don't know how to keep going when things go bad. Last year, we knew how to do that. I had to talk to a lot of people to get them fired back up. That game wasn’t over. We needed to keep going.”

And the Seahawks did for a time. They held on Madison’s next possession, but on the possession after that,the Warhawks put the game away. They marched 71 yards in 16 plays to a 1-yard sneak by quarterback Cael Yates, thanks to three major penalties on the Seahawks – one for roughing the passer and two for pass interference.

Yates’s touchdown came on the last play of the quarter and gave Madison a 28-7 lead. They would punch in a final touchdown on their next possession thanks to two runs by Matthew Weiler – the last a 2-yard scamper with 9:49 to go in the game.

But in the end, Knicely got his yards – 114 on 15 carries, becoming the third back this year to rush for more than 100 yards on South Lakes after Brayden Humprheys of Herndon and Charlie Boucher of Chantilly.

And Madison’s defense dominated.

South Lakes finished with six first downs and 62 total yards – both low outputs for the year. After halftime, the Seahawks had 21 total yards and one first down. They punted a season-high 10 times and, other than one 12-yard competition to Picarelli, no passes went for more than seven yards.

“We had a couple of chances with some guys being open, but we didn’t hit them,” said South Lakes Coach Jason Hescock. “We hung with one of the best teams in Virginia for a half. We let a big play right after halftime get to us a little, and they’re a real good team. We made some mistakes that we just couldn’t overcome.”

Madison 7 7 14 7 – 35
South Lakies 7 0 0 0 - 7
SL-Cody Wood, 2 run (Nicholas Bertoni kick)
M-William Helvey, 63 run (Julian Hopewell kick)
M-Dominic Knicely, 7 run (Hopewell kick)
M-Knicely, 59 run (Hopewell kick)
M-Cael Yates, 1 run (Hopewell kick)
M-Matthew Weiler, 2 run (Hopewell kick)

M SL
First downs 13 6
Rushes-Yds 43-275 31-32
Passing Yards 14 30
Passes A-C-I 12-3-0 23-9-1
Punts-avg. 3-36.3 10-27.5
Fum-Loss 2-1 1-0
Penalties-Yards 7-60 5-60

Rushing – M: Knicely 15-114, Helvey 4-74, Weiler 11-71, William Smoot 4-41, Owen Elling 1-3, Yates 6-minus 4, Team 1-minus 22. SL: Wood 13-28, Alec Saunders 6-10, Nicholas Picarelli 1-21, Dalton Blakeney 1-2, Christian Wyatt 2-0, Mohamed Shuaib 5-minus 27.
Pass – M: Yates 11-3-0, 14 yards. Andrew Rowan 1-0-0. SL: Shuaib 20-6-1, 30 yards. Wood 1-1-0, 3 yards. Wyatt 2-2-0, 9 yards.
Receiving – M: Smoot 1-11, Hopewell 1-8, Anthony Volnis 1-minus 5. SL” Picarelli 1-12, Sammy Alfred 2-14, Matthew McArthur 2-9, Saunders 1-2.