THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 2, 1994 TAG: 9409020780
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Richard Johnson showed Thursday night that he is ready and able to continue Lake Taylor's long line of quality tailbacks.
Johnson, a 5-foot-10, 170-pound senior who played in the shadow of first-team All-Tidewater tailback Deangelo ``Dink'' Hodges last year, stepped confidently into the spotlight at Chittum Field, rushing for four touchdowns and 118 yards in Lake Taylor's season-opening 30-7 victory over Salem.
None of his runs, however, proved more important than his 38-yard scoring burst around left end early in the second half, breaking open a tight game and making Salem pay for its most glaring error.
Leading, 12-7 at halftime, the Titans stalled on their first possession of the third quarter at their 40. It appeared Lake Taylor would settle for pinning Salem back on its 8 when Mario Elliott booted a 52-yard punt. Instead the Titans, ranked No. 4 in South Hampton Roads, had first-and-10 at Salem's 40-yard line when the Sun Devils were called for roughing the punter.
Salem had sent all 11 men in an effort to block the punt. The Sun Devils had gambled successfully near the end of the first half when Gerald Taylor scampered 38 yards for a touchdown on a fake punt.
This gamble misfired and three plays later, Johnson took a pitchout from Elliott and won the footrace to the goal line.
``We like to play aggressively and when you're playing a quality team like Lake Taylor you've got to make your breaks,'' said Salem coach Bill McTyre of the all-out attempt to block the punt. ``It backfired and there's no other way to characterize the way we played after that, other than to say it was a collapse.
``But we're young. We'll learn a lot from this one.''
What the Titans learned was that they can't keep reading their press clippings.
``The newspaper stories blew our heads up big,'' said Elliott. ``We've got to stop looking at the paper.''
After halftime, the Sun Devils managed just one first down, that on a facemask infraction against the Titans on the next to last play of the game.
``We played sorry,'' said Lake Taylor coach Bert Harrell. ``I was very disappointed in our defense. We've got a lot of work to do. But we were better in the second half. (Assistant coach) Billy Morrow made some little changes in our defense that worked.'' by CNB