William Campbell hosts Gretna with Dogwood District title on line

NARUNA — William Campbell football coach Brad Bradley has a name for the type of game fans have come to expect whenever the Generals battle Dogwood District rival Gretna, as they will at home tonight at 7.

“It’s going to be one of those slobberknockers,” he said.

For football, that term is defined on urbandictionary.com as “a good hard hit where you can see spit fly from the helmet.”

“People are going to knock the crap out of each other,” Bradley added.

What makes this county border clash so fiercely contested year after year? There’s almost always something more than bragging rights riding on it.

“Gretna and William Campbell’s become a great rivalry here in Central Virginia and it’s great for high school football,” Bradley said. “I can’t remember the last time that the winner of this game was not the Dogwood District champion, so there’s a lot at stake (tonight).”

The Generals (6-1, 3-0 Dogwood) and Hawks (6-0, 3-0), who have won 20 straight games after capturing their third state championship in five years last fall, are in the same district but different divisions. William Campbell is Division 1 and Gretna is Division 2, so both teams could win state titles in the same year, though that hasn’t happened before.

The Generals won their first in 2002, with Cedric Peerman, now a senior running back at Virginia, rushing for a state final record seven touchdowns in a 70-0 slaughter of Appalachia. The Hawks then claimed back-to-back Group AA, Division 3 crowns in 2003 and 2004 with Vic Hall, now a defensive back at UVa, taking shotgun snaps out of Gretna’s spread attack, setting all-time state total career yardage marks. William Campbell won its second championship in 2005 and Gretna its third last fall, first at the Group A, Division 2 level.

Now, Stanley Peerman, Cedric’s brother, is a senior and the Generals’ leading receiver (21 catches, 297 yards, 3 TDs) and second-leading rusher (43 carries, 278 yards, 6 TDs) behind senior quarterback Baron Adams.

After being held to two yards on four carries with no receptions in last season’s 46-21 loss at Gretna, Peerman and the Generals want to redeem themselves.

“This is our last shot at Gretna, so we’re going to go out with a bang,” Peerman said. “We try not to base our season on this one game (but) the road to the state championship comes through Naruna. We just want to bring that (Dogwood District) trophy back here.”

“We can’t say we’ve got next year now, so we’ve got to do it,” added senior fullback Donald Byrd, who rushed for 101 yards last season at Gretna. “We’ve waited for this one. We’ve got to get it. Put up or shut up.”

Last year, Jayme Barksdale gave Gretna coach Chris Thurman a Gatorade shower after the Hawks outscored the Generals 30-0 after halftime, taking advantage of two successful on-side kicks, the game’s only turnovers.

Now, Barksdale is Gretna’s signal-caller, filling in admirably for sophomore Nick Miller who dislocated his ankle and fractured his fibula in a scrimmage at Jefferson Forest. Through six games, Barksdale has thrown for 452 yards and eight touchdowns with only two interceptions while rushing for 627 yards (9.0 average per carry) and nine TDs.

“He’s doing a tremendous job,” Bradley said. “They lost their quarterback who was so important from last year and to still be 6-0 at this point, you definitely have got to give your hats off to coach Thurman and their staff and to Barksdale who’s been getting the job done.”

His counterpart, Generals QB Adams, is playing as well as he did at the end of last year, when he rushed for 200 yards and the go-ahead score in a 29-28 loss to Buffalo Gap in the Region B final. So far this season, he has rushed for 716 yards and 13 touchdowns and passed for another 762 with 11 and only two interceptions.

Thurman credits Campbell’s offensive line, led by Thomas Wright, Dimire Nowlin, Mike Barbour and Austin Hofmann.

“Their quarterback is a great runner,” he said of Adams. “The best team up front we ever played was William Campbell in (2002) and this front five they have is probably as good as the front five they had in ’02.”

Gretna’s is formidable as well, led by senior stalwarts Bennett Fulper and Ethan Winn.