By Dave Morrison
PRINCETON – Oak Hill coach Davon Marion got just about everything he wanted from his defense Friday night in a 42-28 loss to Princeton.
Which sounds strange given the points put up by the Tigers.
But the game plan went the way he wanted it.
The Red Devils held Dom Collins out of the end zone for the first time in 13 straight games, dating back to the regular-season finale against Parkersburg South – a 6-0 loss – in 2021. That’s no small feat. Collins scored at least one touchdown in every game last season, and he had seven already in two games this season. Collins had one rush that ended as a 10-yard loss after he recovered a fumble and caught four passes for 36 yards. He did have a 90-plus yard kick return for a touchdown called back.
“I didn’t want Dominick to beat us, and I watched the Bluefield tape (Princeton beat the Beavers 27-6) and I liked what they did,” Marion said. “We just gave up several big plays, we have to be able to tackle in space and get people on the ground.”
Mr. Big Play for the Tigers Marquel Lowe. The lightening that delayed the game for 49 minutes at the start had nothing on Lowe, who proved to be lightning personified with a 70-yard touchdown run off a swing pass from Chance Barker just 1:05 into the game and had an 80-yard touchdown run making him a catalyst in Princeton’s victory at a soggy Hunnicutt Field.
“At the end of the day, Davon Marion is a great defensive coach,” said Princeton’s first year coach Keith Taylor, an assistant with Marion at Princeton over the past six seasons. “They had great game plan and they whipped us up front, Fortunately Marquel carried us offensively. We did not look good. We had a bunch of penalties, and it was a very sloppy game. But congrats to Oak Hill. They came out and a lot of times they wanted it more than we did.”
For all the big-play lightning that Princeton’s Lowe provided, it as a pair of smaller ones that struck biggest blow.
He had a big game-changing sack, one play before his 80-yard run and avoided a disaster near the end zone that turned in to a 13-yard pass play and first down to keep a scoring drive going.
His play on what could have been a safety, or worse, for Oak Hill was what Red Devils coach Davon Marion, a former Princeton defensive coordinator before coming home to Oak Hill (he is from nearby Mount Hope), called “heads up.”
With the Tigers stationed at their own 11, Lowe took a pitch from quarterback Chance Barker at about the five and tried to go wide, with Oak Hill’s Jeremy Taylor bearing down on him in the end zone. He alertly saw Collins and flipped him the ball at about the three. He moved laterally to the Princeton sideline, breaking a tackle inside the 1-yard line and advanced out to the 24-yard line.
“To be honest that was instinct,” Lowe said. “I’d rather get a flag than a penalty. I just saw him and tossed it to him and whatever happened after that, I could let (Oak Hill) get a safety on that and get their momentum jumping up.”
A flag was thrown but after a conference it was waved off. It was the right call (shown in the video below).
“I didn’t know what the penalty was but I’m pretty sure you can still lateral it after you hand it off,” Taylor said. “But we did catch a break. We caught a break.”
Oak Hill thought they got a safety.
“They ruled it like a flea-flicker, because it was a backwards handoff, and then he is allowed to throw it forward after that,” Marion said. “We thought (Lowe) was right beside (Barker) when he gave it off. It’s a judgement call Kudos to him. It worked. It got them out of a jam. It was a heads-up play because we had him, but he made a better football play, and you live with it.”
The other big play was a sack.
Oak Hill put together a long, time-consuming drive (7:36) and faced a fourth-and-7 at the Princeton 8-yard line. The snap to quarterback Malachi Lewis was obstructed. He picked the ball up but as he tried to escape, he was snowed under by Lowe, at the 20, with an assist from Noah Basham.
One the next play he went 80 yards for a touchdown that made it 21-7.
Two plays prior to the sack Oak Hill had a six-yard Lewis to David Spaulding touchdown overturned by a penalty.
Lowe was a statistical force, showing up in the rushing column (13 carries, 148 yards, two touchdowns), receiving (one reception, 70 yards and a touchdown) and passing (1-for-1 for the big 13-yard pass to Collins).
Lowe really showed his athleticism early in the game when he took a pass from Barker and traversed down the sideline for a 70-yard touchdown, his second 70-yard yard touchdown reception in the Tigers’ 3-0 start.
“I’m going to give props to my linemen,” Lowe said. “If it wasn’t for my linemen leading for me, I probably wouldn’t have made that play. I thought I was out of bounds but kept inbounds and from there I went for the touchdown.”
A pair of 1-yard runs by each team – one by Oak Hill’s J.D. Mauritz and one by Princeton sophomore quarterback Barker (his first varsity rushing touchdown) made it 14-7 at the half.
Then came Lowe’s big plays. His touchdown run after the sack made it 21-7 and his pass to Collins led to a Barker to Mikey Diacomo touchdown pass (the first of two) that made it 28-14 early in the fourth.
There were 35 points scored in the fourth quarter after the teams combined for 35 in the first three quarters. Oak Hill got no closer to 14 in the final quarter.
“I knew that was a good football team over there,” Marion said. “I wanted our guys to show up and give ourselves a chance to win in the fourth quarter. It started to get away from us a little. We’re still growing. We had several drives inside the 25, in the gold (5-yard-line in) and red zone (20-yard-line in) that we just squandered away. I told the guys at halftime that the team that played cleaner in the second half would win. Penalty after penalty, mistake after mistake, that will get you beat against a good team. We can either take this as a lesson and get better for next week or we can let it snowball and ruin our season. But I believe our guys are ready to bounce back and make something happen next week.”
Princeton (3-0) is home for the third straight week hosting Pulaski, Va. and Oak Hill (2-1) is home against Lincoln County.
Princeton 42, Oak Hill 28
Oak Hill 0 7 7 14 – 28
Princeton 7 7 7 21 – 42
First quarter
P – Marquel Lowe 70 pass from Chance Barker (Saeed Aboulhosn), 10:55
Second quarter
OH – J.D. Mauritz 1 run (Jackson Pino kick). 9:33
P – Barker 1 run (Aboulhosn), 4:29
Third quarter
P – Lowe 80 run (Aboulhosn kick), 4:09
OH – David Spaulding 15 pass from Lewis (Pino kick), 1:40
Fourth quarter
P – Mikey Diacomo 8 pass from Barker (Aboulhosn kick), 8:43
P – Diacomo 17 pass from Barker (Aboulhosn kick), 4:11
OH – Malachi Lewis 1 run (Pino kick), 2:54
P – Lowe 12 run (Aboulhosn kick), 1:26
OH – Mauritz 21 run (Pino kick), 1:01
INDIVIDUAL STATS
Rushing – OH: Mauritz 17-105-2, M. Lewis 18-77-1, James Green 5-24, Tyler Ashmore 5-21. Prin: Chance Barker 8-66-1, Lowe 13-148-2, Bradley Mossor 3-11, Kalum Kiser 1-37, Dom Collins 1(-10)
Passing – OH: M. Lewis 14-24-0-124-1 Prin: Chance Barker 10-13-1-148-3, Lowe 1-1-0-13-0
Receiving – OH: Armonyi Hicks 1-2, Spaulding 7-88-1, Elijah Gray 4-26, Mickey Spack 2-8. Prin: Lowe 1-70-1, Dom Collins 4-36, Diacomo 4-63-2, Mosser 2-(-5).
