Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 7, 1995 TAG: 9510070029
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Cave Spring High School's football team discovered it had a valuable knack that perhaps it was not aware of.
The Knights can find a way to win even when they aren't on top of their game.
Such was the case when Cave Spring overcame a sputtering offense and four interceptions to repel host Rockbridge County 9-6 and maintain a perfect record Friday night.
The Knights' fifth straight victory was not assured until Cave Spring's Nathan Manning broke up a fourth-down pass from second-string quarterback Travis Clark to Matt Staton at the Knight's 14 with less than a minute to go.
``All of our victories have come the hard way,'' Cave Spring coach Steve Spangler said.
The hardest task confronting Cave Spring Friday was to make its passing attack work. Rockbridge County stayed in the game thanks to four pickoffs, two of them by Jimmy Emore, who has seven for the year.
Cave Spring got the one play it needed when quarterback Jeff Lang hit Billy Frantz for a 41-yard completion early in the fourth quarter. That put Cave Spring in business at the Wildcats 22.
``I really thought we were going to win that game 6-2, then that pass came along and changed the whole game,'' Rockbridge County coach Jamie Talbott said.
Seven plays later, fullback Robert Hale bulled over for the winning score.
Rockbridge County had one last drive late in the game, and Clark was at the controls for most of it, as starting quarterback Greg Stubblefield gathered his thoughts on the bench after being knocked woozy. Clark, a sophomore, drove the team 83 yards before Cave Spring made its final stand.
``The defense won the game for us,'' Spangler said.
Rockbridge County's defense almost did the same. Chad Brown set up Rockbridge County's go-ahead touchdown with an interception. Emore scored from the 1 three plays later. The two-point conversion pass failed, and the Wildcats led by four with 2:37 left in the third.
Cave Spring looked dead when it responded to that score with another Lang interception, but the Knights' defense held.
Defense was the distinguishing feature of the first half as well. It would have been a scoreless first couple of quarters were it not for a bad pitch from Stubblefield to Emore inside the Wildcats' 5.
Emore was fortunate to track the ball down, but had to fall on it in his own end zone for a safety.
That was it for the first-half scoring, but there was still plenty of other action to entertain a large homecoming audience.
Rockbridge County was stopped at the Cave Spring 19 and had to turn it over on downs.
Cave Spring's Lang inadvertently set up the safety when he threw a wobbly interception to Emore - his second of the half - at the Wildcats 3.
Cave Spring had 104 yards rushing, 77 of that from Jason Fox, while putting a virtual halt to the Rockbridge County ground attack. The Wildcats (4-2), who lost their second straight, had only 11 yards on the ground.
Most of the Rockbridge offense in the first half came from Stubblefield's three completions to end John Camden for 53 yards.
see microfilm for box score
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB