D8 SOCCERNOTEBOOK Episcopal remains perfect


BY PAUL TENORIO AND ANDYMARSO


The top-ranked Episcopal


boys’ soccer team entered this season on a 45-game unbeaten streak, but somehow still had a little more to prove. Despite two perfect seasons,


marred only by two ties last year, Maroon Coach Rick Wilcox, the fall 2009 All-Met Coach of the Year, wanted to show that Epis- copal could beat some of the area’s other elite teams, and im- prove in doing so. On Wednesday, the Maroon


proved their pristine record re- flected its overwhelming talent. Behind a shining performance


from junior midfielder Ntokozo “Shiloh”Tshuma, Episcopal (6-0) augmented its streak and reem- phasized its standing as the area’s best, trampling four-time defending Washington Catholic Athletic Conference champion Gonzaga, 3-0. “We’ve been waiting for this


game, we’ve been trying to schedule the game since before I came here but because of games we had in IAC and other tourna- ments we couldn’t fit the match in,” Tshuma said. “But Gonzaga has been a good program in soccerandwescheduled it just to test us this season and just prove


ourselves. It was a game to prove ourselves, that’swhywehad a lot of fans coming out because ev- eryone knows Gonzaga is good and we are trying to prove our- selves, [prove] that we’re better.” Tshuma, who led the Maroon


in scoring as a freshman but missed all of last season due to a kneeinjury,wasundoubtedlythe most impressive player on the field. Displaying a calm effective- ness in possession and a devas- tatingly quick first step paired with crowd-pleasing skill, Epis- copal was most dangerous when Tshuma was on the ball. He sat back for the majority of


the first half. But when Tshuma took possession of the ball 25 yards from net in the 32nd min- ute, he needed just two touches to create enough space to find the far post and give Episcopal the lead. Five minutes later, Episcopal


seniorTrevor Bobola skied above defenders at the far post and got his body on a corner kick from Kurt Anderson to extend the lead. Junior midfielder Ross Hig-


gins scored two and a half min- utes into the second half to in- crease the lead to three. Several big saves from Gonzaga goal- keeper Ryan Massey kept the Eagles (6-4) in the game.


Shutout streak survives Oakland Mills senior Anna


Kiely lined up an uncontested shot from the top of the box late in the first half ofTuesday’sgame atNo. 2 RiverHill. Kiely struck it soundly, the ball sailed over the outstretched arms of the goal- keeper, headed toward the net and . . . banged off the the cross- bar. The near-miss probably


wouldn’t have changed the out- come of a game River Hill even- tually won 9-0. But those few inches of pipe holding up the netting kept the Hawks’ season- opening shutout streak alive. RiverHill has started 5-0 with


five shutouts — a run that’s just recently grown long enough to capture the team’s attention. “I think the other day was the


first time we said, ‘Hey, no one has scored against us rightnow,’” RiverHill Coach Brian Song said. “Today’s the fifth game now, so we’ll talk about it a little bit in practice tomorrow. That’s a learning curvewhereI say, ‘Look, you can’t go the whole season without giving up a goal.’” Thestreakcomesdespite chal-


lenging early-season matchups against Broadneck and Urbana, the absence of injured sweeper Hailey Emrick and a goalkeeper playing her first varsity season in junior Carly Brunett.


JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST


Episcopal junior Ntokozo Tshuma, left, proved difficult to keep up with as he propelled theMaroon (6-0) to a 3-0 win overGonzaga.


Brunett earns statistical credit


for each shutout, but was quick to spread credit around after the OaklandMills win. The ball “goes through 10 girls


before it gets to me,” Brunett said. “I only get like30seconds of action each game, so I think it’s mostly defense that’s the key.” Experience along the back line


has been an asset for theHawks. Callahan Allen is a freshman but the other starting defenders — Stephanie Norman, Taylor


COLLEGE FOOTBALL


Field goals are no snap for Cavaliers


Place kicker Randolph has yet to put one through the uprights


BY STEVE YANDA


charlottesville — Virginia place kicker Robert Randolph moved to a smooth cadence on the field last season. Snap, hold, kick. And off the field he would go. The Cavaliers might have struggled to a 3-9 record in 2009, but Randolph’s performance drew accolades and high expec- tations entering his junior sea- son. But after converting 17 of 19


field goal attempts last season and being named a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award, given annually to the nation’s top kick- er, Randolph has yet to make a field goal through the Cavaliers’ first two games this year. Virginia coaches are quick to


point out that fault for the team’s field goal struggles does not lie solely on its kicker’s shoulders, but even if Randolph is the victim of a bad snap or hold, he acknowledges that a job that requires immense concentration and fluidity has become flooded with distraction and vacillation. “It is frustrating, especially


TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs is averaging a career-low 2.4 yards per carry as opponents focus on theMidshipmen’s senior star. After slow start, Navy’s offense revived


Strong half Saturday offers promise for remainder of season


BY GENEWANG In the first half of Saturday


night’s game at Louisiana Tech, Navy’s triple option offense was still having only mixed success, and the Midshipmen were in danger of losing for the second time in three games. Complicating Navy’s prob-


lems was quarterback Ricky Dobbs’s bum ankle, which he hurt inthe team’s opener against Maryland on Labor Day and aggravated the following game, and the absences of the starting right tackle and free safety be- cause of concussions. Given the troubling circum-


stances, the first drive of the second half might be the most meaningful so far this season for the Midshipmen. Trailing by seven, they responded with vir- tuoso execution of the triple option, driving 72 yards on 12 plays in 5 minutes 5 seconds for the tying touchdown. Navy followed with another


lengthy touchdown drive near the end of the third quarter in which backup quarterbackKriss Proctor, briefly relieving Dobbs,


scored on a seven-yard run.Mo- ments before the touchdown, the Midshipmen converted fourth and two with slotback Gee Gee Greene’s 17-yard run off Proctor’s pitch. Suddenly, after two games in


which its offense had trouble scoring,Navywas back to its old ways. The exhausted Louisiana Tech defense could do nothing to stop a fourth-quarter touch- downmarch that put the finish- ing touches on a 37-23 road victory for theMidshipmen. “Itwasn’t anything rocket sci-


ence,” Navy Coach Ken Niumat- alolo said about his team’s im- provement in point production from the first two games. “We just had to finish drives.” TheMidshipmenwere unable


to do that against Maryland in their opening game or against Georgia Southern five days later, averaging just 13.5 points over the stretch. That was the lowest two-game scoring output for Navy since 2006 and fewest points over two games to start a season since 2000, when Navy amassed 19 points combined in losses to Temple and Georgia Tech on theway to a 1-10 season. The first half against Louisi-


ana Tech had a similar feel. Although the Midshipmen scored two touchdowns, the sec- ond quarter was hardly a vin- tage display of the triple option.


Navy got a 38-yard completion from Dobbs to Greene to the Bulldogs 26 before Dobbs threw a 25-yard touchdown strike to slotback John Howell on third and nine. While Dobbs was well on his


way to a career-high 219 passing yards, the drive took just 2:15, meaning the defense got little time to recover before having to contend again with Louisiana Tech’s spread formation. Taxed from extensive time on the field and the heat and humidity in Ruston, La., the Midshipmen allowed 10 more points in the secondquarter andenteredhalf- time behind, 23-16. Then came the opening drive


of the second half. “Coach said it was a defining


moment for our team,” said Dobbs, who completed 8 of 14 passes with one touchdown and one interception against the Bulldogs. “I told themthe defini- tion of this team is going to be perseverance.” It looks as if that will be


especially the case for Dobbs, who has not rushed for 100 yards in a game this season after seven such performances last year. The hurt ankle is partly to blame, but so is a commitment among defenses to curb the re- cord-setting senior’s impact. Last season, Dobbs ran for 1,203 yards and 27 touchdowns,


the most in a single season by a quarterback in NCAA history, and guidedNavy to a 10-4 record that included a 35-13 victory overMissouri in the Texas Bowl. This year,Dobbs has 174 rushing yards, averaging a career-low2.4 yards per carry, with four total touchdowns. Through three games last season, Dobbs had accounted for seven touch- downs. Dobbs gets roughly twoweeks


to heal more fully in advance of an October schedule that starts at Air Force — the second of three consecutive road games— and includes Notre Dame at the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Navy took Tuesday andWednesday off and resumes practice on Thursday. “We’re going to do what we


do,” offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper said. “If we’ve got to run the quarterback inside like we always do, we’re going to do it. It’s worked for us great for the past eight years, andwe’re going to keep doing it. “When you break us down, I


don’t think people spend a lot of time on our passing game. It’s going to be the same as always. We’re going into the game want- ing to run the football and eat up the clock, and if something is there, we’re going to try to ex- ploit it.”


wangg@washpost.com


coming off the good year that I had last year,” said Randolph, who was named to the preseason Groza Award watch list. “And then just not being able to pro- duce this year, it’s real frustrat- ing. I guess that’s just from not having the most confidence in our snap-hold-kick operation right now. That’s probably what slows the times down andmakes me hesitate, instead of going right at it.” If all goes as planned Saturday


against division I-AA Virginia Military Institute, the Cavaliers (1-1) will be afforded opportuni- ties to address a number of issues that have been focal points at practice during the past two weeks. Coach Mike London on Monday listed three primary ar- eas of desired improvement: third-down conversions, penal- ties and the kicking game. After reviewing film from Vir-


ginia’s 17-14 loss Sept. 11 at South- ern California, London deter- mined that timing was the main culprit in his team’s field goal miscues. The entire operation, he said, was too slow. Randolph said the optimal


time to get from the snap to the kick is between 1.2 and 1.3 sec- onds. In the Cavaliers’ four field goal attempts this season, Virgin- ia’s snap-to-kick time has been in the “mid-to-high 1.3 seconds,” according to Randolph. A tenth of a second “isn’t a


huge difference just talking about it,” Randolph said. “But in real life that can make a huge difference in how much penetra- tion is getting through, the de- fensive linemen on the other side getting their hands up.”


Against USC, Randolph


missed a 45-yard attempt wide right on Virginia’s first posses- sion and came up short on a 35-yard try that was partially blocked with less than four min- utes remaining. On the second attempt, the snap from senior Danny Aiken was high and tight, London said, which led holder Jacob Hodges to brush the ball against his side as he brought it down. Hodges had to adjust the ball, which disrupted Randolph’s approach. Randolph also came up short


on a 50-yard attempt during Virginia’s season-opening win overRichmond.He hasmissed as many field goal attempts in the past two games (three) as he did during his first two years at Virginia (20 for 23). London has said that Ran-


dolph and junior Chris Hinke- bein routinely make field goals from 50 to 55 yards out during practice, but their success has not carried with them on Satur- days.Hinkebeinmissed a 51-yard attempt against Richmond. The Cavaliers are one of two


division I-A teams to have at- temptedmore than one field goal this season and not converted. “We have to try to get that


fixed as fast as we can because it looks like a lot of our games are going to be close this year,” special teams coordinatorAntho- ny Poindexter said, “and it’s go- ing to come down to being able to make field goals.” During Virginia’s bye last


week, the team zeroed in on its execution in the kicking game. London said he implemented a live rush and other forms of pressure against the field goal unit in an attempt to force them onto the same page. “The snap, the holder and the


kicker, they’re integral parts of the success of that, and so we tried to do some things with crowd noise, with our players standing over them hurling in- sults at them,” London said. “You miss a kick, the whole team is going to run, which is quite effective.Maybe I need to do that in a game. Before you run out there, you basically are going to run sprints if it’s amiss.” Randolph said the difference


between last year and this season has everything to do with rhythm. In 2009, he did not hesitate when the ball was snapped. He approached the space where the ball would be, swung his leg and knew the result: three points. It is imperative, Randolph


said, that “the whole system” — snap, hold, kick — rediscovers the rhythmthatmade last season so successful. Until then, Ran- dolph is prepared tomake neces- sary adjustments. “If the ball is there, then it’s


there; if not, then it’s just not there,” Randolph said. “But something I know I have to do is just go right at it and be confi- dent inmy ability.” yandas@washpost.com


Nowaskey and Isaura Oporto — are all seniors. It also helps to have players


like diminutive forward Anna Theisen, who zips around like a waterbug holding possession in the offensive zone. All in all, it’s a team that re-


minds Song of his state-title squads of 2006, 2007 and 2008. “Defense wins champion-


ships,” he said. tenoriop@washpost.com marsoa@washpost.com


EZ SU


KLMNO HIGH SCHOOLS


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010


THETOP10


BOYS’ SOCCER It's a muddled picture early in the season with several top teams beating up on each other. Marriotts Ridge, which suffered its first loss last week, beat Walter Johnson, which topped B-CC. Tuscarora (Md.) beat Broadneck, and Northwood, which lost its first game last week, defeated Clarksburg.


1 Episcopal 2 DeMatha


3 Marriotts Ridge 4 Walter Johnson


5 Bethesda-Chevy Chase 6 River Hill


7 Tuscarora (Md.) 8 Broadneck 9 Northwood 10 Clarksburg


(5-0) (8-0) (4-1)


(4-1-1) (1-1-1) (5-0)


(5-0-2) (4-1)


(3-1-1) (3-1)


GIRLS’ SOCCER Chesapeake forwards AshleyReilly and Tori Luc have eight goals and six goals, respec- tively. ... Junior goalkeeper Elizabeth Ulan has four straight shutouts for Tuscarora (Md.) and has not allowed a goal in her last 358 minutes of play.


1 Good Counsel 2 River Hill


3 Tuscarora (Md.)


4 Bethesda-Chevy Chase 5 Spalding 6 Holy Cross


7 Elizabeth Seton 8 Severna Park 9 O'Connell


10 Chesapeake Records through Tuesday


(6-0-1) (5-0)


(5-0-1) (2-1) (5-3)


(2-0-1) (4-1-1) (2-0-3) (3-3-1) (4-1)


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