ALTAVISTA — Mike Scharnus spent most of Friday night in tunnel-vision mode, aware of only the situations on the field in front of him and the instructions blaring into his ear through his headset.

At one point, when a referee complained that Scharnus kept walking on to the field to talk to his players, Scharnus’ response was, “I didn’t know. I wasn’t aware.”

But after Daelyn Myers ripped through the Dan River front line for a 41-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter, essentially sealing Altavista’s 37-12 romp of the Wildcats, Scharnus slipped out of the headset and yelled, “Yeah baby!” He knew the work was done, and the celebration of what he would later call the biggest victory in his three years as head coach at Altavista had begun.

Two weeks ago in their home opener, the Saint Anne’s-Belfield football team struggled through a scoreless first half only to score 28 unanswered points en route to a 28-0 victory over Trinity Episcopal.  On Friday night, the Saints employed a similar technique, scoring 26 second-half points on their way to a 26-7 win against the Virginia Episcopal School. 

LOVINGSTON — Nelson County stayed right with Gretna for the first half as the Governors and the Hawks went into halftime tied at 14-14.

But Gretna’s running backs started to find some room by cutting back against an over-pursuing Nelson County defense and scored 22 unanswered points to stay undefeated in the Dogwood District with a 36-14 victory on Friday.

Scoreboard from Friday night’s high school football games involving area teams

Brookville football coach Jeff Woody has experienced his share of sleepless nights since his wife, Celeste, gave birth to the couple’s first child, Rowen, on Monday.

He could sleep peacefully Friday night after the Bees (6-1, 2-1 Seminole District) overcame a 7-0 halftime deficit and held off Heritage, 14-13, stopping the Pioneers’ two-point conversion attempt in the final 40 seconds.

For the second straight game, Heritage (1-5, 0-2) watched potential game-winning heroics turn into heartbreak with a last-minute loss on the road.

A lot of big games this week, as district play starts to get serious. Here are the games we’re reporting on tonight. Check back for scores and highlights.

Food and football often go hand-in-hand at parking lot tailgate parties before big games.

This fall, for the first time in what they hope will become an annual event, E.C. Glass and Heritage high schools are joining together with The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Network to lend a helping hand in relieving hunger throughout the Lynchburg area.

APPOMATTOX — Neal Thomas has always had Kenny Scott’s back on Appomattox’s football team, as his backup at quarterback the past four seasons.

Scott, who starts at cornerback in the Raiders’ secondary, is Thomas’ backup at safety, and the two seniors share kickoff and punt return duties.

This season, much like Brandon “BeBe” Adams and his top target Terrence Younger at William Campbell — where Appomattox travels to play tonight at 7 — the close friends have established an even stronger connection as a quarterback-receiver tandem.

Check out the latest photo highlights from Friday’s games around the region.

MONETA — There’s another streak at Staunton River.

After suffering through a 28-game losing streak spanning nearly three years, the Golden Eagles won their third straight game Friday — a 13-0 decision over Tunstall.

Junior quarterback Cody Jones got Staunton River on the scoreboard in the first quarter with a 4-yard run and Meech Coles padded the Golden Eagles’ lead with an 84-yard scamper in the second quarter.

RUSTBURG — It wasn’t pretty, but E.C. Glass took advantage of six Rustburg turnovers to gut out a 24-14 victory, spoiling homecoming for the Red Devils and picking up their first win of the season and their first win as a member of the Seminole District.

“We played a good football team and are just grateful to get one into the win column,” Glass coach Richard Trent said after Friday’s game. “It was a huge win for us and our kids played their hearts out.”

GRETNA — With his son lying motionless on a stretcher late in the first quarter, Gretna coach Kevin Saunders gathered his players together. With tears chocking up words, he told the kids he was going with his son to the hospital and he wanted his team to pull out the win.

The Hawks answered with three quarters of emotional football, completely manhandling and dominating Altavista 22-0 Friday night in the Dogwood District opener for both teams.

APPOMATTOX — A Raiders’ offense that has outscored its last three opponents 113-32 failed to pro-duce a scoring drive in the second half against Chatham.

It didn’t need to.

Less than one minute into the opening quarter, Kenny Scott hit J.J. Rose on a short swing pass to the right that Rose turned into a 42-yard touchdown. The Raiders would go on to score four more times in the first — three in the first seven minutes — to take a 25-0 lead into the second quarter en route to a convincing 41-7 win.

DUBLIN — Pulaski County’s final drive Friday night was mostly for show, used mainly to bolster stats against Amherst’s second unit. Before that 99-yard drive, there weren’t many stats to bolster.

In a 33-10 victory in what Amherst coach Cecil Phillips calls one of the three toughest Group AA venues in the state, the Lancers’ defense was downright nasty, making up for a somewhat sloppy offensive performance. The Cougars took over at their one-yard line with less than four minutes to play, and at the time, Amherst had more sacks (seven) than Pulaski had yards of total offense (four).

BEDFORD — Play it forward.

That’s what Liberty High’s football coaches exhort the Minutemen to do, to atone for their mistakes by making something good happen.

“We preached to the guys in practice, if you make a mistake, step up and make up for it,” Liberty coach Chris Watts said after the Minutemen stunned Brookville 35-20 in a Seminole District showdown between Division 3 rivals on Friday night.

Here are the games we’re watching tonight.

A majority of Tunstall High’s varsity football team has missed practice this week because of flu-like symptoms, but the Trojans’ game tonight at Staunton River has not been postponed or canceled because of the outbreak.

High school football preview capsules for Friday night’s games involving area teams

Since rejoining the Dogwood District in 2005, after spending two seasons as an independent school, Altavista has lost four games to Gretna by a combined total of 174-21.

The last time they opened their district schedule against the Hawks, the Colonels were 4-2, coming off a 16-14 victory over Buckingham. They wound up losing by a 47-7 count and finished 4-6.

But Altavista (4-0) has outscored its first four opponents by a 163-54 count this season, compared to Gretna’s modest 72-50 edge, giving first-year coach Kevin Saunders reason to believe his Hawks will be in for a dogfight when the Colonels come to town tonight at 7.

Liberty Christian Academy senior Terence Caskey nearly got kicked out of kindergarten.

The fourth child of a drug-addicted mother from New York was so wild and acrobatic at the Brookneal school that he was disruptive to his classmates.

Now, as a starting outside linebacker and running back, Caskey is a disruptive force on both sides of the ball for the 4-1 Bulldogs, who host Riverdale Baptist in their homecoming game tonight at 7:30 at Liberty University’s Williams Stadium.

Four of the area’s top high school football teams have dealt with injuries to their starting quarterbacks, with mixed degrees of severity.

APPOMATTOX — At 6 feet, Neal Thomas isn’t terribly tall, at least not by wide receiver standards. So when his quarterback, Kenny Scott, throws a jump ball his way, Thomas’ timing needs to be nearly perfect.

Early in the second quarter of the Raiders’ 27-14 win against Park View on Friday night, Thomas wasn’t perfect. Far from it. He jumped far too early when Scott lofted a deep pass, and he was nearly underneath his defender, Michael Taylor.

But Thomas showed his ingenuity and an ability to adjust on the fly, wrenching backward to get a hand on the pass before hauling it in for a 37-yard touchdown that put the Raiders (3-1) up 14-7. They wouldn’t trail again.

GRETNA — While being a graduate assistant coach at Virginia Tech in 1990, Gretna coach Kevin Saunders learned from the best that defense and special teams can win football games.

Gretna’s defense forced five Radford turnovers and Andre Dickerson returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown as Gretna celebrated its homecoming with a 20-14 victory over Radford on Friday night.

Box scores from Friday night’s football games

The fourth annual Black and Blue Bowl between E.C. Glass and Jefferson Forest lived up to its name.

Every inch, every completed pass and every kick during the three overtime periods put the crowd a bit closer to the edge of their seats until the Cavaliers’ Dylan Sims’ 18-yard field goal separated the two teams and JF walked out of City Stadium with a 31-28 victory.

AMHERST — Leave it to Amherst County High School’s football team to turn a showdown between undefeated Seminole District powers into a homecoming parade.

The Lancers (4-0, 2-0 Seminole) came out as a team on a mission in Friday night’s clash against Liberty and took care of business early, rolling to a 42-0 lead before the halftime pageantry, when quarterbacks Kirby Anderson and Anthony Rose were crowned homecoming kings of their respective junior and senior classes.

Brookville’s football team was reminded of an important lesson Friday night — there are no freebies in the Seminole District.

Visiting Rustburg gave the Bees all they could handle for three quarters before Brookville broke away with three touchdowns in the final 12:05 in a 21-0 victory.

“That was our first Seminole District football game, and that’s what we’ve got to expect every week in the Seminole,” Bees coach Jeff Woody said. “Rustburg is a good football team, and they’ve got it going in the right direction. Give them all the credit in the world. They had us stifled.”

Perhaps it was the 13-0 loss to Broad Run in the Group AA, Division 4, state championship game last December at Liberty University.

Perhaps it was the fact Amherst graduated its entire starting offensive line.

But it seemed like this season, more people than ever were wanting to see the Lancers prove something before saying it was the same old Amherst team that had been to three consecutive state title games.

GRETNA — There is a reason both Kevin and Matthew Saunders have been successful everywhere they have coached. It’s not that they’ve had an overwhelming advantage over other teams or that their coaching schemes baffled others.

It’s that both of them, at a young age, learned from the best that they had to step up and take the lead.

Liberty High football coach Chris Watts knows the Minutemen will have to play a near perfect game to contain Amherst’s volatile Wing-T running attack in tonight’s Seminole District-opening clash at Lancer Stadium.

“They’re extremely quick,” Watts said. “I don’t know if there’s a team (in the state) as fast as them across the board, having that many backs that can run. They’ve just got so much speed that if you make a mistake or don’t stay with them, they’re going to hurt you.”