Lancaster uses strong second quarter to pull away from Charles City

Charles City’s James Harris IV (60) and Sherod Barnes (1) drags down Lancaster quarterback Porter Pittman as teammates Messiyah Greene (12) and Carter Sheridan (56) closes in for the assist.

Robb Johnson photo

Being one of the smallest schools in the state of Virginia to have an 11-man football team, Charles City’s Panthers opened the regular season Friday night against the visiting Lancaster Red Devils, looking to snap an 18-game losing streak. The last team they defeated; Lancaster.

And while the Panthers had several highlights and bright spots, it was the visitors who emerged with a 44-0 win in the non-district matchup.

Early on, Charles City showed plenty of fight, making Lancaster methodically march down the field on the opening series. It would take six minutes before the Red Devils received their first break, as Porter Pittman connected with Brooks Parker on a 17-yard touchdown pass to provide the visitors a 6-0 lead.

After a good return by Panther senior Messiyah Greene, Charles City’s offense sputter, forcing them to punt the ball back to Lancaster. It would take Lancaster another five minutes to score, this time at the beginning of the second quarter with a touchdown run from Lavontae Cooke.

From there, Charles City’s mental and emotional mistakes caused setbacks. Two unsportsmanlike penalties on defense by the hosts pushed the ball deep into Panther territory for Lancaster. From there, Demarcus Howard’s 12-yard scamper upped the visitors lead to 20-0.

Charles City’s best offensive drive followed, as the senior duo of Sherod Barnes and Shane Jones connected on back-to-back plays. After getting to the 18-yard line, Barnes attempted to hit Jones in the corner of the end zone, but Barnes’ heave was intercepted by Terrill Diggs. On the next series, Lancaster would add another score to up the lead to 28-0 by the halftime break. Lancaster added two more touchdowns in the second half to finalize the scoreboard.

Despite the loss, Charles City Head Coach Sherod Jones spoke about the positives he’s seen in the game.

“Each year, we are rebuilding and starting from scratch over-and-over again,” he commented. “We just have to continue to grow in practice and capitalize in the game.

“We don’t win games on Friday nights, you win on Monday through Thursday at practice,” Jones continued. “We have to continue to get better and that is what we will do. We made mistakes, but our newcomers played well tonight. We’ll use tonight as a lesson and build on this for next week.”