Ingram overcomes weather to lead Bobcats

By Brian Hunsicker

Published: September 25, 2008

Adrian Ingram’s 171 rushing yards were quiet; the weather dictated that. Amid a wind-driven rain, both Ingram’s Battlefield teammates and their opponent, Stonewall Jackson, had difficulty moving the ball on Thursday night.
Though the Bobcats came away with a 29-0 win, neither team was smooth in moving the ball. Ingram’s longest run, a 69-yard fourth-quarter touchdown, was easily the longest play of the night and helped Battlefield put the game away.
Prior to that outburst, Ingram’s longest run was 11 yards. The Bobcats (4-0) gave him the ball again and again, moving steadily and keeping the clock running.
“You’ve just got to hit it. Take what they give you,” Ingram said. “It’s going to open up eventually.”
It did. His longest run in the first half was nine yards, though the gains kept getting longer and longer before the long touchdown run, which was his final carry of the game.
He accounted for both second-half touchdowns, which put the game out of reach. The only other points came on a safety: Stonewall lined up for a punt deep in its own end. The snap was slightly high, but slipped through the fingers of the punter and fell behind the end line.
Stonewall (0-4) had considerably more trouble. Only four of their 15 rushing plays in the second half gained yardage; in all, the Raiders totaled only two yards on the ground.
“Our run defense, they’re well coached, they’re a good defensive group as a unit,” Bobcats coach Mark Cox said. “They’ve got a lot of pride in what they do. Our kids, we’re not very big. We’re not big at all, but we’re quick, and they do what the coach says.”
The teams combined for 85 offensive yards in the first half; Stonewall’s longest plays were passing plays of 24 and 20 yards. The Bobcats had only one play over 10 yards, Bo Revell’s 15-yard screen pass to Cooper Bull that gave Battlefield its first touchdown.
In the only score of the second quarter, Battlefield linebacker Zavier Stringfellow intercepted a pass from Stonewall quarterback Anthony Ashby and ran 64 yards for the Bobcats’ second touchdown. Ashby appeared to be setting up a middle screen and took an exceptionally deep drop, but threw the ball right to Stringfellow, who broke to his right and had nothing but teammates in front of him.
The game was originally supposed to be played on Friday night, but was moved up a day because of the weather.
Though rain fell on and off, the wind was constant and passing was difficult; the teams combined for only 93 yards passing.
“[The field] looks pretty crappy right now,” Cox said, “but we wanted to try to get it in, because they’d just tear it up even more tomorrow.”