High School Sports

Maddox Twigg returns, MHS runs past Hedgesville

BY RICK KOZLOWSKI

For The Dominion Post

HEDGESVILLE — Maddox Twigg returned to Morgantown’s lineup Friday after missing almost two full games after suffering a hamstring injury late in the first quarter of the Mohigans’ season-opening win against Parkersburg.

It wasn’t much of a surprise Twigg rejoined the lineup to face Hedgesville in Week 3.

“He probably could’ve played last week,” Morgantown coach Sean Biser said. “We didn’t want to put him out there and chance anything.”

Twigg’s arm?

Check.

His legs?

Check more or less.

It all checked out as Twigg and Morgantown, the defending Class AAAA champion, won 57-3 over Hedgesville at Mumaw Stadium,

“I had a feeling they were going to start me to get into a groove,” said Twigg, who was to spend the night in Winchester, Virginia, before heading for a college visit Saturday to Liberty “We have some big games coming up.”

After a bye week, Morgantown hosts Spring Mills, visits Wheeling Park and entertains Martinsburg.

Twigg completed 8 of 12 passes in the first half for 110 yards and two touchdowns and jogged 14 yards on two tries — one was a sack — as the Mohigans led 48-3 at halftime. He watched from the bench during almost all of the second half.

“I jogged in” Twigg said of his TD run to a clearing to his left. “If I didn’t, my (offensive) coach would’ve come out of the press box and ripped me a new one.”

Instead, Twigg and Morgantown ripped and rolled Hedgesville.

First halves have not been good to the Eagles, who trailed Martinsburg, the 2025 AAAA runner-up by 74 at intermission to open the season and then gave up 48 to Morgantown.

Despite Hedgesville’s first-half struggles in two of its three games, the two teams were tied at 3 after the first series by each team courtesy of field goals.

“I don’t know what it was, but we were a little sluggish coming out here,” Biser said. “It’s like that all the time. We felt like we were playing in quicksand, but we recovered and played.”

Morgantown scored on its second possession and then kept scoring every time it had the ball in the first half, including three first-play touchdowns, two on passes by Twigg and a third on a run by the junior quarterback.

Lyric Blake pushed over the 2-yard line with 20 seconds in the first quarter to give the Mohigans a 10-3 lead.

Two minutes later, Morgantown pushed the lead to 17-3 as Twigg hooked up with Tanzer George on a 20-yard touchdown pass the first play after Hedgesville failed on a fourth-down pass.

Blake’s 8-yard run into the end zone with almost seven minutes left in the half extended the advantage to 24-3.

Morgantown exploded in the final minutes of the second quarter.

Twigg tossed a perfect first-down 35-yard touchdown to Landon Cook, Rudy Carrillo returned an interception 20 yards for a touchdown and Twigg skated in for his rushing TD, extending Morgantown’s lead to 45-3.

“We limited what (Twigg) could do on offense,” Biser said. “He needed to play to knock some rust off.”

Hedgesville’s Caleb Wood threw a second interception to Carrillo with 46 seconds, and Petsko converted his second field goal, an 18-yard boot at the second-quarter horn.

Twigg’s night was almost done. He played two snaps in the third quarter.

“I’m almost up to 100 percent,” Twigg said.

Morgantown turned to Chantz Lenhart at quarterback, and there was no letup as Derrick Turner ran 14 yards for a touchdown on the Mohigans’ first possession of the second half, making the score 55-3 as the clock ran for the second half.

A punt snap out of the end zone by Hedgesville gave Morgantown a safety, its last points.

Hedgesville, which struggled through nine negative-yardage plays, finished with 39 yards of offense. Morgantown produced 305 yards.

The Eagles did manage 50 yards on its first play of the game as Wood flipped a pass, and the ball was reversed to Kolton Brown.

Hedgesville fell to 0-3 and Morgantown moved to 3-0.