Local players enter longstanding rivalry in “The Game”

The Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s football season once again has boiled down to one of college football’s oldest rivalries.

Randolph-Macon hosts Hampden-Sydney at 1 p.m. today in Ashland, in what essentially will be the ODAC championship game.

Simply dubbed “The Game,” it will be the 115th time the two teams have met since 1893. For the third consecutive season, the winner will claim both the league title and the conference’s automatic bid to the Division III playoffs.

For a pair of local products — Brookville standout Jamar Lovelace, now a senior defensive back for the Tigers, and Jefferson Forest’s Josh Storm, a freshman placekicker for the Yellow Jackets — being a part of the rivalry’s storied history is exciting.

“Macon is our biggest rival,” Lovelace said. “It’s good to play your biggest rival the last game of the year, but it’s even better when it’s also for the conference title.”

Randolph-Macon won last year’s meeting, 31-21, ending the Tigers’ seven-game winning streak in a series Hampden-Sydney now leads, 58-45-11.

The Yellow Jackets come into today’s game with a 6-3 overall record and a 4-1 mark in the ODAC. Lovelace’s 15th-ranked Tigers are a perfect 9-0 overall and 5-0 in the league.

Even if Hampden-Sydney loses to Randolph-Macon, the Tigers could receive one of the at-large bids into the playoffs.

“If we win Saturday, we should get to host a playoff game,” Lovelace said. “Our goal this year is to be home (on campus) for Thanksgiving.”

Storm didn’t take long to put his best foot forward at Randolph-Macon.

The freshman place-kicker won the starting job out of camp. After missing his first field goal attempt, stubbing his toe on a 22-yard try, he has more than proven himself up to the challenge in the Yellow Jackets’ pursuit of an ODAC title defense.

“I was pretty nervous,” Storm said of his first attempt. “There was a smaller crowd than in high school. It was a really different feeling and I was kicking off the ground for the first time.”

After that first missed field goal, Storm went on to make his next 10 attempts, including a career-long from 41 yards. He also has made 22 of his 24 extra-point attempts for a total of 52 points this season.

“Since that game, and even since high school, I’ve gotten more and more confident,” Storm said. “With the adrenaline flowing, I feel pretty confident out to about 45 yards. I think I can (convert) from 50, too.

“I don’t really get nervous anymore,” he added. “Maybe some butterflies before the game.”

He’ll definitely have them before today’s “Game.”

“I’m as excited as you can get,” Storm said. “We started the season 0-2 and to get into the playoffs would be the best feeling ever.”

But he and the rest of the Yellow Jackets know they are going to have to play a near-perfect game to knock off the Tigers.

“We are really going to have to play well to come away with the win,” Randolph-Macon coach Pedro Arruza said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

Storm is leading the team in scoring and is seventh in the ODAC at 5.8 points-per-game, behind only one other kicker — Hampden-Sydney’s David Prizza (6.3 points-per-game). No other ODAC kicker has made more than nine field goals.

So if today’s game comes down to a field goal or extra point, both kickers are very capable. But Lovelace would rather the outcome hinge not on a kick, but a hit or a pick. His physical play in the secondary has played a large part in the Tigers’ perfect season.

This year, Lovelace, who’s 5-foot-11, 195 pounds, has started all nine games and ranks seventh on the team in tackles with 36, including 21 unassisted stops. He also has intercepted a pass and broken up five more.

“I’ve put on 25 pounds,” he said, compared to his high school frame. “I’m playing a hybrid of a safety and outside linebacker. I like playing closer to the line of scrimmage. I like getting to hit people.”

The last time Hampden-Sydney made the playoffs was 2007. The Tigers lost to Wesley College 45-17 in Dover, Del., in the first round.

“(Wesley) was the top-seeded team in the region,” Lovelace said. “We were the lowest seed and I think we were just happy to get into the playoffs and kind of lost focus.

“The difference this year is the closeness of the team. The same group of guys that play together on Saturday is the same group of guys that are eating together and watching film together. That closeness, that trust, is carrying over onto the field.”

Storm also has experienced that closeness. He had some help surviving preseason camp from three of his JF teammates who also were going through the experience for the first time. Defensive back Brandon Harrison, linebacker Tyler Rosser, and offensive lineman Neil White, all members of the Cavaliers’ first playoff team in 10 seasons last fall, helped one another through the dog days of summer camp.

“These are three of my better friends,” Storm said. “We were able to pick each other up.”