A month ago it wasn’t certain that Galax was going to have a football team this year. After last Friday’s opener at Glenvar, that might not have been a bad idea.
The Highlanders blew the Maroon Tide out of Roanoke County last Friday with a 70-0 win. Galax had minus 50 yards for the game and no first downs while Glenvar rolled to a 49-0 lead at the half and cleared the bench after intermission. Coach Kevin Clifford was somewhat apologetic about the final score.
“We’re good sports,” he said. “Everyone in uniform played and we had the jayvees in there in the second half. You never want to embarrass anyone but you can’t tell those kids not to play hard.”
The 70 points is a school record, one point more than Glenvar’s 69-7 win over Martinsville last year. Before that the record was 63, accomplished five times since 2011.
Obviously, it could have been worse. Quarterback Brody Dawyot was seven for 11 passing for 155 yards and three TDs, and he also ran four times for 55 yards and two more scores.
Tre Dawyot caught four passes for 112 yards and two scores. Cooper Mullins and Drew Butler had one catch apiece, both for touchdowns, while Ranger Swanson ran for two scores on just five carries. Freshmen Money Shaw and Lyric Adams both had TD runs. Mullins was 10 for 10 kicking extra points, a school record for PATs.
On defense Nick Wilson led Glenvar with nine tackles, six of which resulted in losses. Brody Dawyot had seven tackles and two sacks, Rawlin Hanks had seven tackles and Dalton Shoemaker had six.
With that game out of the way the Highlanders are off to Bedford this Friday where they’ll play a Liberty High team that broke a 37 game losing streak with a 50-16 win over William Campbell last Friday. Two of those losses in the streak were to the Highlanders, 63-0 in 2023 and 50-8 last year. In ’23 the Minutemen were outscored 595-6 for the season and the fewest amount of points they gave up in any game was 49.
“They’re a little better,” said Clifford. “They always have some good looking skill kids. Their coach left to be an assistant at Roanoke College right before the season.”
Glenvar’s jayvees will host Liberty tonight.
