Football: With 0-3 Start Buried, Big Plays Propel Park View Past Woodgrove

Sterling (Sept. 19, 2011) - Park View High School second-year football coach Ferris Eways wanted his team to forget its 0-3 start and he didn't particularly care to ever watch the game film again from those three games where his team was out-scored, 141-20, by the powerhouse trio of Broad Run, Liberty and Briar Woods.

So Eways had his team bury the start, literally, as he dug a hole just off the Park View stadium field and put the three game films in the ground. It is safe to say that Friday's game film -- which saw the Patriots rally from an early 10-0 deficit to beat Woodgrove, 49-18, in a Dulles District game -- will not join the first three tapes in the Sterling Park soil.

"We knew it was going to be a tough start with those first three games," said Eways as he received congratulations Friday on he field from family and friends. And when asked how he got his team to forget the 0-3 start he said it was simple: "We dug a hole and buried the tapes."


For Park View (1-1 in district, 1-3 overall) it was a series of big plays that allowed them to out-scored Woodgrove (0-2, 2-2), 49-8, after the slow start.

A quartet of Patriot seniors -- quarterback Alec Dombkowski, running back Khalil Brooks, wide receiver Ryan McCarter and wide receiver/defensive back Dante Absher -- all had their big moments Friday.

Absher, broke a tackle and turned a pass from Dombkowski into a 40-yard score with Park View trailing 10-0 in the first quarter and then on Woodgrove's next possession, Absher intercepted a pass to give the Patriots the ball at the Wolverine 18.

Dombkowski and McCarter hooked up on two huge touchdown plays, both after Eways decided against having reliable kicker senior Wilfredo Avila (7 of 7 on extra points Friday) from attempting field goals. The first score came on 4th-and-15 from the Woodgrove 23 as Dombkowski found McCarter beyond the secondary in the corner of the end zone.

That put Park View up 14-10 but Woodgrove, which ran the ball effectively in the first half behind junior Atem Ntantang and sophomore Joshua Sweet, went back ahead, 18-14, on Ntantang's 16-yard run and 2-point conversion dash with 5:06 left in the second quarter. Park View would score the game's next 35 points.

Park View's run started on the ensuing kickoff as junior Geoggrey Staszak fielded a squib kick before it got too far and broke through the first Woodgrove defense to take the ball to the Wolverine 23. After an imcompletion, Brooks, celebrating his birthday Friday, broke off a 22-yard run and the scored from the 1 for the first of his three TDs on the night. He finished with 88 yards on just six carries.

"Three touchdowns on my birthday! This is the best day of my life," said Brooks with a wide smile after the game.

That quick score put Park View ahead, 21-18, with 4:39 left in the half. Even bigger momentum shift was up next as the Patriot defense stopped Sweet, who had scored earlier on a 48-yard quick dive that fooled the Park View defense, on 4th-and-1 on the Park View 44 with 1:43 left in the half.

Dombkowski, who threw for 216 yards in the game on 15 of 22 passing, calmly drove the Patriots into scoring position with a 7-yard pass to senior Brian McManus, a 19-yard pass to Brooks and then a 7-yard scramble of his own. Woodgrove's defense came up with a sack by senior Riley Johnson but Dombkowski connected with Asbher for a 17-yard gain to the Woodgrove 14. The veteran quarterback hurried to spike the ball to stop t clock with 15 seconds left.

After just missing a scoring pass to McCarter, who was pushed out of bounds by the Wolverine secondary on a leaping grab, the Patriots were left with 6.4 seconds left. Eways rolled the dice and passed up the 31-yard field goal attempt though about halfway through the play, as Domkowski scramble around the pocket, unable to spot anybody open, the coach said he wished he had kicked the field goal.

McCarter, however, kept working in the end zone to get open and Dombkowski spotted the 6-foot-2 receiver open just under the goal posts for the TD with only a half-second left on the clock.

Woodgrove, which didn't have Sweet in the backfield in the second half after he was shaken up towards the end of the first half, couldn't move the ball in the second half as Park View had switched up its base defense.

"We went to more of a goal line defense," said Eways.

Park View continued to come up with big plays. After Woodgrove pinned the Patriots back on their own 4 with a punt in the third quarter, Park View needed just two snaps to find the end zone as Dombkowski hit McCarter for a 42-yard play-action pass and then Brooks scampered 54 yards for a score to make it 35-18.

Later in the third a 61-yard drive, which featured a short Absher reception to convert on fourth down, ended in a Brooks 10-yard TD run. The final Park View score came on the first play of the fourth quarter as the Patriots second offense took the field and junior Benjamin Stanton made the most of his opportunity with a 49-yard TD run.

At the start of the game, Woodgrove could have been up more than 10-0 but on the Wolverines first drive, sophomore Thomas Carter and senior Jonathan Wooten teamed up to make a big tackle in the backfield on 3rd-and-goal from the Park View 6. Robert Warfel kicked a 27-yard field goal to make it 3-0.

Park View 49, Woodgrove 18
WG 10 8 0 0 - 18
PV 7 21 14 7 - 49

1 W: 27 FG Warfel 7:42
1 W: Sweet 48 run (Warfel kick) 5:14
1 PV: Absher 40 pass from Dombkowski (Avila kick) 1:14
2 PV: McCarter 23 pass from Dobmkowski (Avila kick) 10:23
2 W: Ntantang 16 run (Ntantang run) 5:06
2 PV: Brooks 1 run (Avila kick) 4:39
2 PV: McCarter 14 pass from Dombkowsi (Avila kick) 0:00.5
3 PV: Brooks 54 run (Avila kick) 7:21
3 PV: Brooks 1 run (Avila kick) 1:43
4 PV: Stanton 49 run (Avila kick) 11:46

Rushing
W: Ntantang 17-84, Sweet 7-65, Hoffer 4-44, Workman 7-18, Austin 2-11, Coil 4-3. Total 41-225.
PV: Brooks 6-88, Stanton 2-54, Dombkowski 5-17, Wooten 3-7, Argueta 2-5, Johnson 3-4, #27 3-3, Kincaid 3-0. Total 27-178.

Passing
W: Workman 4-6-0 28, Coil 2-6-1 11. Totals 6-12-1 39.
PV: Dombkowski 15-22-0 216, Team 0-1-1 0. Totals 15-23-0 216.

Receiving
W: Basinger 2-16, Williams 2-12, Welsh 2-11.
PV: Absher 6-89, McCarter 5-86, Brooks 2-25, Apple 1-9, McManus 1-7.