Gretna & Vic Hall articles...

[GMan 3,569]

Hall puts on audition for college football fans

By ANDREW DRESSEL / Register & Bee sports writer

November 27, 2004

 

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. - Fans are coming from far and wide to see Vic Hall in action.

 

With legions of Hokie Nation and a brave contingent of Cavalier Country descending on Blacksburg in preparation of Saturday’s rivalry game between the state’s Division I-A powers, many wanted to catch a glimpse of Hall, who has verbally committed to the University of Virginia.

 

Gretna’s senior quarterback didn’t disappoint during the Hawks’ thrilling 49-42 Region III championship victory against host Christiansburg at Evans King Sports Complex on Friday. The versatile, 5-foot-10, 175-pound player, who can burn defenders with his arm as well as his feet, put on a dazzling offensive show, racking up 237 rushing yards to go with 131 yards and three touchdowns on 6-of-11 passing.

 

On the final play of the game, Hall picked off the Blue Demons’ Hail Mary attempt to preserve the win for the defending AA state champs.

 

Said one of his uncles, Tobias Hall, who has driven Vic to five U.Va. home games this season: “He doesn’t care about nothing else (referring to Gretna’s football team).”

 

Roughly 20 other members of Vic’s extended family made the trip out to Christiansburg and so did many fans wearing burnt orange and auburn, and a few wearing orange and blue.Bryan Holbrook, a junior quarterback at Radford High School, lost to Christiansburg 20-14 in the season-opener, but he still attended the game to see Hall and Co. play. Holbrook will root for the Hokies at Lane Stadium on Saturday.

 

Fans are anxious to see what Vic could potentially do for the Wahoos if he inks a letter of intent in Charlottesville.

 

“I’m pulling for Christiansburg, but I’m here to see Vic Hall,” said Christiansburg resident Rob Holland, a Virginia season-ticket holder. “I saw him on TV, but I wanted to see him in person.”

 

David Witt, a Cavalier season-ticket holder from Petersburg, attended for the same reason.

 

“He’s got a strong arm, he’s really fast and he’s got a lot of potential,” he said. “I think he’s too small to play quarterback, but I heard he might be the next Michael Vick.”

 

Todd Williams of Manassas, Va., and Todd Patterson of Johnson City, Tenn., both graduated from Virginia Tech in 1993 and decided to watch the high school playoff game because they were staying in town in preparation for the Tech-Virginia game. Hall was the main drawn of course.

 

“I read about the game in the Roanoke newspaper,” Williams said. “I wanted to watch Vic Hall, not as a fan, but just to see how good he is.”

 

After much celebration and fan fare, Hall even found the time to sign autographs for a few starry-eyed youngsters, lined up to meet him. But the soft-spoken Hall hasn’t let stardom affect his concentration. He’s taking his final prep season one game at a time and he doesn’t even consider what may greet him on the collegiate level.

 

“I’m just focused on high school,” said Hall, the Virginia state record-holder in career total offense (13, 071), passing yards (8,407), completions (492) and touchdowns (100). “I’m keeping my head in the game and doing everything I can to help my team, no matter what happens (off the field).”

 

Vic won’t be watching the cross-state rivalry contest in person because he couldn’t get tickets, but he will be following the game on television. He’ll also be gearing up for next Saturday’s AA state semifinal contest with Tazewell at Gretna High School.

[GMan 3,569]

Comeback lifts Gretna

By ARNOLD HENDRIX / Register & Bee staff writer

November 27, 2004

 

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. - Billed as a showdown of two explosive offensive teams, Gretna and Christiansburg delivered Friday.

With defense seemingly irrelevant, it seemed certain that the winner would be the team who had the ball last.

That team was Gretna.

 

Senior quarterback Vic Hall threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to Jason Meyers with 12 seconds left in the game to give the Hawks a 49-42 victory and their second consecutive Region III championship.

 

“It was an awesome game. It could have went either way,“ Christiansburg head coach Tim Cromer said. “(Vic) Hall is an awesome player. We just couldn’t find an answer. The kids played their hearts out. We just ran out of time.“

Trailing 28-12 at halftime, the Hawks scored 37 points in the second half on five touchdowns. Hall accounted for four of the scores, running for two and throwing for two. The other touchdown was a 73-yard interception return by middle linebacker Lamar White.

 

White’s interception was one of two passes the Hawks picked off in the second half. The miscues gave Gretna the break it needed.

 

“In a regional championship game, turnovers are going to determine the outcome,“ Gretna head coach Robert Senseney said. “It’s not necessarily the number of mistakes you make, but when you make them and whether you capitalize on them. We were able to get some turnovers at keys moments and turn them into points.

 

Cromer agreed that the turnovers were the key to the game.

“We made just a couple of mistakes,“ he said. “Turnovers will kill you, but that’s football. It’s a great game.

“This game certainly was that - great.“

 

After trailing most of the game, Gretna managed to get its first lead when Hall ran 10 yards for a touchdown with 6:05 left to play. Rico Reynolds ran for the 2-point conversion, giving Gretna a 42-36 lead.

 

Christiansburg would respond with a nine-play drive covering 65 yards, capped by a 1-yard run by quarterback Andrew Hoffer with 2:27 left in the game. The Blue Demons missed the extra point, leaving the score tied at 42.

That set the stage for Gretna’s dramatic eight-play, game-winning drive, which ended with Hall’s touchdown pass to Meyers.

 

Gretna, which entered the game with an 11-0 record, was the No. 2 seed in the Region III, Division 3 playoffs. Christiansburg was 9-2 and the No. 1 seed in the region, coming out of the rugged River Ridge District and having played a tougher schedule.

 

Gretna is in its third consecutive state playoffs. Two years ago, the Hawks lost in the regional finals to Liberty. Last season, they won the state title. Gretna defeated Cave Spring 49-28 a week ago to advance to this year’s regional championship.

 

The Blue Demons were making their second consecutive appearance in the state playoffs. A year ago, they lost to Rustburg 12-0 in the first round. In advancing beyond the first round this season, Christiansburg defeated No. 4 seed and nemesis Hidden Valley 21-14 in overtime last Friday. The win avenged an earlier 16-0 loss to the Titans.

 

The Blue Demons operate out of the wing-T, a more run-oriented offensive scheme, with a play-action pass complement. The Hawks use a no-huddle, shotgun offense that requires the quarterback to read the defense then call the appropriate play at the line of scrimmage.

 

Gretna’s offensive scheme is explosive, producing 581 points prior to Friday’s game, for an average of 52.8 points per game. Its lowest output was 32 points. A week ago, the Hawks scored 49, including 37 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, in their first-round playoff victory over Cave Spring.

 

Christiansburg entered Friday’s game having scored 304 points for the season for an average of 27.6 points per game. The Blue Demons were shut out three weeks ago by Hidden Valley, but scored 20 or more points in their other games, with a high of 45 against Giles in the second game of the season.

 

Both teams’ defenses are not as strong as they were a year ago, but Gretna again entered Friday’s game with the statistical advantage, holding its opponents to 20 points or less in eight of 11 games. For the season, the Hawks had yielded 185 points.

 

Christiansburg’s defense had allowed 263 points, including a high of 49 points against Pulaski County.

 

Before Friday’s game, the Hawks’ closest margin of victory had been 20 points, that coming in victories over Brookville and William Campbell.

 

Hall is the focal point of the team even more so this season because of the state records he has established. He entered Friday’s game having passed for 2,402 yards, with 133 completions in 209 attempts. Thirty-two of the completions were for touchdowns.

 

He had rushed for 1,383 yards on 119 carries for an average of 11.6 yards a carry. Nineteen of the rushes hit pay dirt.

 

As it stands, he has the state records for career passing yards with 8,276 (8,212 was the previous record), career offensive yards (rushing and passing) with 12,741 (11,519), career completions with 486 (473), and career passing touchdowns with 97 (89).

 

On Friday, he threw for 131 yards on 6-of-11 passing. He rushed for 237 yards on 24 carries.

 

The Hawks will face Tazwell next Saturday in the state semifinals. The game will be played at Gretna.

 

Tazwell defeated Virginia High 26-7 on Friday in the Region IV championship game.

 

 

Gretna 6 6 14 23 - 49

Christiansburg 14 14 0 14 - 42

 

First quarter

C - Chapman 1 run (Boyd kick) 9:36

G - Short 71 pass from Hall (run failed) 6:28

C - Hoffer 3 run (Boyd kick) 4:27

 

Second quarter

C - Chapman 3 run (Boyd kick) 11:56

G - Hall 2 run (pass failed) 8:18

C - Chapman 18 run (Boyd kick) 3:13

 

Third quarter

G - Hall 10 run (Reynolds run) 6:52

G - White 73 interception return (run failed) 2:17

 

Fourth quarter

C - Chapman 2 run (Hoffer run) 8:59

G - Short 45 pass from Hall (Reynolds run) 7:45

G - Hall 10 run (Reynolds run) 6:05

C - Hoffer 1 run (kick failed) 2:27

G - Meyers 9 pass from Hall (Dalton kick) :12

[GMan 3,569]

Gretna goes Hollywood

By JOHN COSCIA / Register & Bee sports editor

November 27, 2004

 

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. - Call your favorite movie producer, get Steven Spielberg’s director chair ready, then cast Denzel Washington and Billy Bob Thornton, because the Gretna Hawks and the Christiansburg Blue Demons just wrote the sequel script for Friday Night Lights Part 2.

 

The Blue Demons, thanks in large part to a California transfer named Jacques LaBoone, once again made attending a high school football the thing to do on a Friday night this season in the town of Christiansburg. But even that storybook fairy tale wasn’t enough to dethrone the King and his Kingdom as the Gretna Hawks led by their modern day Superman, Vicqual Hall, pulled off a Hollywood ending that proves that truth is in fact stranger than fiction.

 

“They had a game plan and they executed it to perfection,” said Gretna head coach Robert Senseney. “We knew they’d try and play ball-control and keep Vic (Hall) off the field.”

 

And for 39 minutes and one second, that plan worked its way to a 36-26 Christiansburg lead. The problem is that a prep football game is 48 minutes long.

 

And over the final 8:59 minutes it was the Vicqual Hall show.

 

Logic states that when writing a game recap the best way to go about it is to start with the game’s biggest play and go backwards from there.

 

This game defied that logic.

 

Thanks to Hall & Company.

 

And while you’re at it give props to Mr. Hall, the man who has already shown in the weeks and months previous that he seemingly appears to defy the Law of Gravity, also demonstrated on Friday night that he doesn’t have much respect for Murphy’s Law either.

 

“I was getting a bit antsy on the sidelines,” Hall admitted through his trademark smile. “Great teams make great plays in great games. This was a great game. (Christiansburg) played hard but we never lost faith. We just kept pushing.”

 

As for Christianburg’s big playmaker, LaBoone (six catches, 128 yards) hadn’t heard much about the Gretna Hawks… that all changed Friday as well.

 

“To me I never heard of (Gretna) but everybody was telling me that they were pretty good,” LaBoone said. “(Gretna) never put their heads down, no matter what happened. (Hall’s) pretty good. He definitely knows how to lead his team.”

 

While it was Hall that was instilling fear in the Christiansburg sidelines, it was his supporting cast that got him back in the position to score.

 

Things were looking bleaker than bleak for Gretna. Not only were they trailing, worse yet, the Hawks defense was showing no signs of being able to stop the Blue Demons offense.

 

But then a senior leader and his freshman cousin along with a junior defensive back turned the momentum Gretna’s way and got Superman back on the field.

 

The first big play was a tip by senior defensive lineman Horace Hubbard who tipped a pass at the line of scrimmage. Junior linebacker Lamar “Mookie” White intercepted the pass and returned it 73 yards for a touchdown.

 

“Horace tipped it, without him I would never have made the play. After that I caught it and brought it to the house,” White said.

 

And then it was the freshman’s turn.

 

With Christiansburg’s quarterback Andrew Hoffer under heavy pressure he made an ill-advised pass and freshman Tyon Bennett intercepted the ball.

 

“We knew we had to do whatever it took to get Vic back on the field. He can’t make plays for us on the sidelines,” Bennett said. “We’re being led somehow. It just has that feeling to it. And Vic, he’s something else. What can you say?”

 

During the fourth quarter Hubbard broke his two front teeth but remained in the game as the captain of his defense.

 

“Horace is the kind of player I’ll take with me in battle in war,” Hall said. “He’s a soldier. There are a lot of dog soldiers on this team. A lot.”

 

And then there’s the general.

 

With 12 seconds left in the game Hall found Jason Myers wide open in the end zone and scored a milestone touchdown, his 100th career passing touchdown.

 

More importantly, to Hall, it was the game-winner.

 

“Records are nice to break but I’ll tell you I never had that feeling like I got last year when we won the state championship,” Hall admitted. “That’s what we want. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’re all gunning for.”

 

The Blue Demons would try one last miracle Hail Mary pass in the game’s waning seconds.

 

But Hall, accustomed to playing center field for the Hawks baseball team, assumed his position in the middle of the field, intercepted a pass and ran out the clock, sliding to the ground as the clock showed zeros.

 

“Hello, Mr. Spielberg. Have we got a story for you!”