MARTINSBURG — Control the line of scrimmage, control the football as long as possible, make a few big plays and, above all, deny No. 1 Morgantown the end zone.
No. 10 Martinsburg did all of that and more on Friday night, at Cobourn Field at David Walker Stadium. The Bulldogs led from start to finish in a convincing 34-6 win, handing Morgantown its first loss of the season.
“I just thought our game plan was to just come in tonight, do the small things correctly, play our game, cut down on the mental errors,” Martinsburg running back Boston Todd said. “That’s just what we did tonight.”
For his part, there was nothing small about Todd’s play on Friday night. He had two big scoring plays.
Todd’s first play came on Martinsburg’s opening drive. Morgantown won the opening toss, but deferred until the second half.
The Bulldogs took that opening kickoff and went 80 yards on seven plans. With 9 minutes, 42 seconds left in the first quarter, Martinsburg quarterback Brian Dick aired out a 33-yard touchdown pass to Todd for his first big play of the night.
Dick went back to Todd for another big TD strike in the last three minutes of the third quarter. This time, the play covered 35 yards on a go route.
“That first touchdown I had was on a running back empty setup,” Todd said. “They had me do a fake block, then run a go route.”
While Todd’s TD catches sent Morgantown reeling, there’s no denying this game was one where Martinsburg (4-2) was going to do its best to keep the ball out of Martinsburg’s hands and hawk the ball as much as it could.
“Morgantown was showing a 4-3 defense, with their outside linebackers wide,” Dick said. “We were watching that. After we scored our first touchdown, the plan was just to keep the ball away from them as much as possible.”
Martinsburg made it look easy. Even when the Mohigans (6-1) tried to get a drive going, they were either stifled by the Bulldogs’ swarming defense or having good field position negated by a penalty.
Morgantown’s best drive into the red zone was in the last two minutes of the first half. The Mohigans’ drove to the Martinsburg 1-yard line with less than a minute to go in the first half and a chance to score, but a false start pushed the ball back to the Bulldogs’ 5.
Morgantown had to settle for a 23-yard chip shot field goal by Brooks King with two seconds left in the first half. This ended up being the storyline for the Mohigans the entire game.
“We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot,” Morgantown coach Sean Biser said. “We’d get something going, then make some sort of mistake. You just can’t do that against a team like Martinsburg.”
The Bulldogs’ longest sustained drive lasted 18 plays and covered 82 yards. Following a 32-yard field goal by King, Martinsburg took the ensuing kickoff and ate up more than eight minutes of the clock. Ty Ricketts scored on a 1-yard plunge with 3:25 left in the first half.
Martinsburg also got a rushing touchdown from Dick, covering 32 yards in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs’ reserves unit got a score from Kingston McDonald-Gibson, in the final two minutes of the contest when he broke a 62-yarder.
Cody Paige kicked four of five extra points for Martinsburg.
“I think every possession is precious, especially against a really good team like Morgantown,” Martinsburg coach Dave Walker said. “When you’ve got the ball, you’ve got to pick your opportunities, try to take what they give you.”
— Story by Bill Cauley
