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Hebb, Raiders fly past Cavs
Running back leads squad to longest winning streak in 10 years
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Reid Silverman
Senior Michael Hebb scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter Friday evening to help the Raiders to their third straight win, 30-21 over Calvert.
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Friday evening at Raider Stadium, senior Michael Hebb scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to rally Leonardtown to a 30-21 homecoming victory over Calvert.
The win was Leonardtown’s third in a row, marking the first time since October 1997 that it has had such a feat.
‘‘Three in a row, it feels awesome,” Hebb said.
Hebb finished with 22 carries for 147 yards and the two scores as the Raiders go to 3-4 overall, 3-3 in the SMAC.
‘‘My offensive line just kept working all night long,” Hebb said, ‘‘and the fans just kept us pumped and motivated to win this game.”
The Raiders swept the month of October in 1997 and have a similar opportunity to do so in 2007 on Friday evening when they host Lackey.
‘‘Three in a row, that was our goal,” said Leonardtown senior quarterback Bruce Julian, who connected on 9 of 15 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown and ran in one score. ‘‘We said we’re winning the last six games of the season. We’re at three in a row. It’s great that we could live it up tonight, but we’re looking for next week.”
It’s the first campaign since 1998 that the Raiders have won at least three games in a season. They were 3-7 that year.
‘‘We knew that coming in that this was going to be our chance to really put Leonardtown back on the football map,” Leonardtown coach Anthony Pratley said.
Calvert (1-6, 1-5) took the lead to halftime and had it until Hebb scored 14 — two touchdowns and a two-point conversion — unanswered points on his own in the first 5 minutes 16 seconds of the fourth quarter.
‘‘We didn’t have the ball too much in the second half, they wore us down,” Calvert coach Marc Watson said. ‘‘They just kept running the ball, [Hebb] is a great back ... He’s a great football player, he did a great job tonight. They took it to us in the second half. We didn’t execute offensively and we didn’t make many stops defensively. And you don’t win football games like that.”
It was a couple of fourth-down calls that gave the Raiders the lead for good. Julian got two yards on fourth and one from his own 49. Later, he faced fourth and nine from the Calvert 35 and called his own number again, scampering 21 yards to end the third period.
‘‘The reason we went on fourth down is that the offensive line doesn’t know quit,” Julian said. ‘‘They don’t care if the guy across from him is bigger or smaller, they know every play they’re going to make the wall ... and we’re going to get that first down.”
On the second play of the fourth, Hebb ran up the middle for a five-yard touchdown, capping a 13-play, 60-yard drive.
‘‘I don’t think anybody wants to play poker with me, that’s for sure,” Pratley said. ‘‘I love to gamble.”
Pratley added: ‘‘I go in and I ask them every time, ‘You guys want to go for it or you want to fake it?’ And it’s the same answer every time.”
Leonardtown trailed 21-20 with 11:08 to play and decided to go for the two-point conversion rather than tie the game with an extra point. The plan worked as Hebb scored the conversion to give the Raiders a 22-21 lead and they would not trail again.
‘‘We knew that our fullback was a helluva blocker, so I knew if he’d open the hole up it was going to be a two-point conversion,” Hebb said. ‘‘So, he opened the hole up and I just lowered my shoulders and just kept fighting to get in there.”
Leonardtown got the ball back quickly and started from the Calvert 35. It was helped by a 30-yard punt return from senior Jonathon Boss. Four plays later, Hebb muscled his way away from two would-be tacklers behind the line of scrimmage and ran 29 yards down the right sideline to give the Raiders the breathing room needed to win.
‘‘I saw the blitzing backer, so I cut it to the outside,” Hebb said, ‘‘and I had a stiff arm, but he was still all over me. And, I just kept the legs driving and somehow he came up off me and it was nobody in the secondary besides that.”
Midway through the second quarter in a scoreless game, Julian kept Leonardtown’s second drive of the game going by finding senior Kenny Aicher for 26 yards on fourth and 10 from Calvert’s 42.
Julian capped it with a one-yard quarterback sneak and junior Mike Copenhaver ran in a bad snap for a two-point conversion. Leonardtown led 8-0 with 5:34 left in the half.
Senior Ricky Briggs ran back the ensuing kickoff 74 yards to the Raiders 12. Only one play was needed as junior quarterback Keith May (9 of 17 passing for 108 yards) connected with senior Zach Kruder for a touchdown. The two-point conversion failed and Calvert trailed 8-6. It took just 21 seconds to answer Leonardtown’s first score.
‘‘Our kick return has done very, very well this year,” Watson said. ‘‘That’s part of the reason that most teams don’t kick the ball deep to our two guys. And that’s great. When you can start a drive on the 12-yard line, it’s easy to score. That’s a nice thing when you have a 12-yard drive. That’s a great thing.’
Calvert got the ball back on its own 30 with 1:28 remaining in the half and it went the distance in 50 seconds, using seven plays, finishing with a May four-yard touchdown run. Junior Brandon Greening ran in for the two-point conversion and the Cavaliers went to halftime ahead 14-8.
Leonardtown went down to Calvert’s 2 on its opening drive of the second half. But a fumble pushed the Raiders back to the 17, and they later faced fourth and goal from the 16. Julian found Copenhaver to tie the game at 14 after the two-point conversion failed.
Calvert went back down the field to regain the lead. On first and goal from the 5, May’s pass was deflected in the end zone and caught by Briggs for a touchdown.
E-mail Paul Watson at pwatson@somdnews.com.
