Marshall Hobbs’ huge night helps lead Lewis County past Preston 43-7

KINGWOOD — Lewis County High made its way north to face Preston, which hoped to reverse a disconcerting trend by jumping out to a strong start.

Instead, the Knights came out cold as a December home game, as the talented Minutemen cruised to a 43-7 victory.

Lewis County (3-1) took the opening kickoff and it didn’t take long for slick freshman quarterback Trenton Bush to run its single wing offense to perfection — capping the 12-play drive with his only pass of the game, a 12-yard passing touchdown to Vincent Snuffer.

The Knights’ offense sputtered and a high snap on a punt rolled into the end zone for a safety, and a 9-0 deficit.

That’s when the Marshall Hobbs show really took off. The Minutemen’s strong and speedy junior running back bulled through arm tackles and sprinted past defenders throughout the rest of the night on his way to a monster game.

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After the free kick, Hobbs burst through the middle of Preston’s defense on a quick trap handoff and flew in untouched for a 35-yard score.

After another PHS punt, Lewis County was forced to punt on 4th-and-28 early in the second quarter, but punter Jared Griffith found a way to escape, scrambling 30 yards for an improbable first down.

A few plays later, the identical trap play led to a near-identical 27-yard Hobbs score and a 23-0 lead. Preston (1-4), which was forced to start every drive but one from its own 20-yard-line due to Griffith’s powerful kickoffs, turned it over immediately. Then Hobbs bounced a run outside to the right pylon from the 18 for his third score of the game to give Lewis County 30-0 lead.

And the pattern continued with Hobbs scoring another touchdown run after a Preston punt. The Minutemen pushed their lead to 37-0 just before the first half ended.

Facing a large deficit, the Preston coaching staff adjusted on defense and kept Lewis County off the scoreboard in the third quarter. The Knights even converted on a turnover after junior fullback Jeffery Townsend’s grinding, second-effort 13-yard touchdown run.

Early in the final quarter, after Preston’s best drive of the game ended with a turnover on downs at the Lewis County 3, Hobbs capped his epic night with a 79-yard scoring touchdown — pushing his totals to 305 yards on 24 carries and 5 touchdowns.

Another deep PHS drive was snuffed out after an interception in the endzone, which would end up icing the game.

Preston coach Jonathan Tennant, so upbeat after last week’s strong showing in a 10-point loss to Robert C. Byrd, had the opposite reaction to his team’s performance.

“We had no energy, and no passion,” he lamented. “They need to know that we just aren’t talented enough to just show up and expect to be competitive. If we play this way, we won’t be able to beat anybody. Sure, there were lots of distractions, but we focused all week on putting those behind us and coming out ready to get after it right away. We didn’t do that at all tonight and we weren’t competitive for the first time all year. We have two weeks before we play again,” he continued. “It’s going to be very interesting to see how we respond to tonight. We have an entire second half of our season to play and all our goals are still there for us. We can still make the playoffs. We can still finish with a winning record, or at least .500. I want to see us come together, show the effort and passion that we must have to compete and start believing in ourselves. We do that, we can start to win some winnable games.”