‘Rock’ runs wet and wild

Chargers collect 373 rushing yards against Hornets

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Gary Smith Lackey’s Lorne Williams, left, and Michael Johnson ran up a combined 306 yards against Great Mills in a blowout. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Great Mills quarterback Cody Kohn slips on the muddy field Friday night.

And because the weather dictated that passing the ball was going to be even more difficult than trying to get footing on the slippery muck that was the field, Johnson had a good feeling about what his role would be.

‘‘Coming into the game, I knew we were going to run the ball because of the weather conditions,” he said.

His first carry went for six yards, his third for 29. On his fourth, he scored his first of three touchdowns on the Chargers’ way to a running clock in the second half and a 50-0 victory to give themselves their first winning record of the season.

Lackey (3-2) led 37-0 with 35 seconds left in the first half. When the advantage in high school football is at least 35 points in the second half, the clock runs continuously, stopping only for timeouts and change of quarters.

Johnson ran for 265 yards on 18 carries. In two games since returning from an injury that he suffered on the team’s third offensive play of the season, the All-SMAC junior has rushed for 396 yards and four touchdowns.

‘‘First carry, I realized that this is going to be a good ground game,” Johnson said of Friday’s contest.

On the play following his rush for 10 yards against Patuxent on Sept. 8, Johnson took a helmet to his left knee. The sentiment on the team was much worse than the diagnosis.

‘‘He’s not as ginger as when he was coming off of it,” Coach Doug Lamb said. ‘‘But it’s scary as hell when you get hit in the knee. Knees could be career-ending, season-ending.”

Initially, the team thought the knee ligaments were torn. Though Johnson developed an infection in the knee and had to have fluid drained from it, he began jogging a couple weeks after the injury occurred.

And the team suffered without him. It began the season by losing two of its first three games. In its only victory through three weeks, Lackey allowed visiting Calvert to score 27 second-half points to get within eight after it trailed 35-7 at halftime.

After being shut out by Westlake in Week 3, the Chargers went back to the drawing board, deciding it was a new season against Chopticon on Sept. 29. Which also coincided with Johnson’s return.

‘‘We really are looking at this as a second season starting last week,” Lamb said Friday. ‘‘So, we’re looking at it as we’re 2-0. After that Westlake game, guys definitely needed to take a look at themselves inside and out. Because 1-2 just doesn’t cut it.”

Still, Lamb insists there is a lot more to Johnson’s rushing than just his skills. Because the officials tried to keep the ball out of the slop of the middle of the field against Great Mills, it was placed toward the left and right sidelines regardless of where the previous play ended. Which led to most of Johnson’s runs going off the left side of the line.

With a little more than three minutes remaining in the first half, Johnson ran through a gaping hole between the left tackle and left guard and went 30 yards untouched for his second touchdown of the game to put the Chargers up 19-0.

‘‘The thing about him is he’s not a prima donna,” Lamb said of the 5-foot-9, 215-pound Johnson. ‘‘You could have a kid who says, I’m the man. And ‘Rock’ never did that. If you go pound for pound, he’s definitely the strongest kid we have on the team.

‘‘But it’s not just him, and he knows that. We do have some talent on the offensive line, and we have some tailbacks and some receivers, and all that.”

Senior left tackle Manny Gonzales and junior left guard Kendall Vines led the way for Johnson’s most prolific game since he ran for 285 against Calvert on Sept. 16, 2005.

Johnson had 226 yards at halftime. The first half finished with Lackey gaining 262 yards of total offense, while Great Mills (2-3) had just two yards.

‘‘I take a lot of credit in Mike,” Vines said. ‘‘Ever since last week I was glad he came back, and it gave the team a boost.”

Junior fullback Lorne Williams was the lead back in Lackey’s I formation. He ran for 41 yards and two touchdowns on 10 carries.

‘‘I want to block for him,” Williams said of Johnson. ‘‘I ain’t selfish. I won’t just try to get all the carries.”

Williams was the team’s leading rusher with Johnson sidelined.

But he scored the first touchdowns of his high school career with three- and one-yard runs Friday.

‘‘Lackey’s back,” he said. ‘‘I think I did a good job blocking. And he read the blocks perfectly. And we came out successful.

‘‘He’s got great vision, power, speed, all that. I’m glad to have him do what he did.”

Lackey collected 373 yards on the ground, averaging more than 10 yards per rush, while holding Great Mills to seven rushing yards. In the second half, when the rain let up, the Hornets completed the game’s only passes. Senior quarterback Cody Kohn threw for 31 yards on 2-of-11 passing.

‘‘It kind of hurts us, this kind of weather,” Great Mills coach Bill Griffith said. ‘‘It really grounds our kind of attack.”

‘‘I just told our guys, I just said, ‘Forget about it,’” he added of the game. ‘‘All the teams we play they didn’t see but one play.”

E-mail Jason Jay at jjay@somdnews.com.