By Brian Hoffman
The Glenvar football team avenged one prior loss last week, and this Friday they’ll try to turn it around on another. Glenvar will play at Martinsville Friday night in the Region 2C football semifinals after defeating Floyd County in the opening round, 49-14, last Thursday at Glenvar’s Highlander Stadium.
With last week’s win the Highlanders improved to 8-3 on the season and two of their losses were to Floyd and Martinsville. Floyd is now in the books and the Highlanders are seeking revenge on another this week, although Highlander coach Kevin Clifford doesn’t like to use that word.
“It’s never about revenge, it’s about redemption, and redemption is a nice thing to have,” said Clifford.
The first time around the Bulldogs took a 21-14 win over the Highlanders at Glenvar. That was in just the second game of the season and the Highlanders were 0-2 at the time. Since then they’ve won eight of nine with the one loss coming to Floyd, and that was “redeemed” last week.
“Our kids could have bagged the season when we were 0-2,” said Clifford. “But they’ve been resilient all year. Now, we’re right where we want to be, in the second week of the playoffs and still practicing.”
Glenvar is the number three seed in the region while Martinsville is second at 10-1. Bulldogs coach Bobby Martin suffered through an 0-10 rebuilding season in his first year at the helm, in 2019, but he turned that into 5-6 in ’21 and this year Martinsville has had its best season since 1998, when they were 12-1 under legendary coach Taylor Edwards. They were in Class 4 that season, losing to Salem, 17-0, in the state semifinal.
In the 24 years since Martinsville High’s enrollment dropped to the Class 2 level with jobs leaving town and the football team suffered. This season, however, the Bulldogs’ “swag” is back.
“They’re very good,” said Clifford. “They have an exceptional coach, he’s someone I really respect.”
This will be just the third meeting between the two schools. Glenvar won 25-7 during the regular season last year, then beat the Bulldogs 38-0 in the playoffs. The winner of Friday’s game will meet the winner of a game between top-seeded Radford and fourth seeded Appomattox for the Region 2C title next week. If Glenvar and Appomattox win that will be at Glenvar, and Clifford would like the opportunity for another “redemption” game.
“They’ve knocked us out of the playoffs five straight years,” said Clifford of Appomattox. “They’re like Giles used to be until we got over that hump.”
Last week’s game with Floyd was over early. They say revenge is best served cold, and it was rainy and chilly at Highlander Stadium as the home team sent the Buffaloes back on the range to the tune of 49-14.
This game was over at the half, as Glenvar held a 42-7 lead at that point. The Highlanders scored the first 35 points of the game and enjoyed a running clock after intermission. This came after Floyd had beaten Glenvar in three overtimes during the regular season.
“We had some injuries when we played them the first time,” said Clifford. “This time we had everyone healthy and we came out and really got after them. I thought we executed really well.”
Floyd was the subject of that execution. Glenvar got an early turnover when Avone Noel grabbed a ball Peyton Deel had deflected for an interception. The Highlanders took it right down to score and never stopped scoring until the game was decided.
Freshman quarterback Brody Dawyot seems to be getting better every week. Against Floyd he was 17 for 20 passing for 263 yards and six touchdown passes. He also ran 10 times for 58 yards and a TD.
Dawyot has found his soul mate in receiver Gabe Ford. Gabe had five catches for 159 yards and three touchdowns against the Buffs. That gave the Dawyot to Ford combination a total of nine TD hookups in the last three games against stout opponents Radford, Giles and Floyd.
Nick Woodson also had five catches for 78 yards and two TDs, and Jackson Swanson had the other touchdown reception on a 24 yard pass from Dawyot. Elijah Carter had 69 yards rushing on half a dozen carries for an average of 11 and a half yards per pop.
On defense, Shane Gibson led the Highlanders with 12 tackles. Ben Holiday and Caleb Crowder had 10 each and Woodson and Jack Camper had nine apiece.
After playing on Thursday last week to avoid some bad weather the game is back to Friday this week with a 7 pm start in Martinsville.
“I think we’re playing our best football right now,” said Clifford. “Right now our goal is to just get better today.”
