ISLE OF WIGHT
The Isle of Wight Academy Chargers racked up nearly 250 yards of total offense on Friday night, defeating the Portsmouth Christian Patriots, 45-8, at William Hooper Field.

Senior quarterback Bryce Casey led the Chargers with two passing touchdowns and three successful two-point conversions. Running back Donald King added 129 all-purpose yards, including a 39-yard punt return touchdown in the first quarter.

“Our guys did a really good job at making things happen right out of the gate,” Isle of Wight head coach Dale Chapman said. “We rallied from a tough game the week before, and we executed well.”

Isle of Wight took an early lead on a three-play drive, capped by a 50-yard pass from Casey to receiver Chad McCann. After a Patriots three-and-out, King made a few would-be tacklers miss and walked into the endzone untouched for a 12-0 lead.

Feeling the urgency to score, Portsmouth Christian unsuccessfully attempted to convert on fourth down deep in their own territory. Taking over on downs, Casey found receiver Curtis Waters for a 15-yard score to extend the lead to 20-0 at halftime.

“[Portsmouth Christian] was trying to get some kind of offense going, and we put a lot of pressure on them and they couldn’t convert,” Chapman said. “They understood that we meant business.”

Isle of Wight opened the second half with another scoring drive, concluded with a two-point conversion run by running back Alec Edwards. Portsmouth Christian fumbled deep in its own territory on the ensuing drive, and Edwards made the Patriots pay with a 20-yard scamper to give the home team a 35-0 lead. The Chargers recovered a fumbled kickoff return, and King rushed for a 48-yard touchdown on the next play to make it 43-0 with just over six minutes to play in the third quarter.

Isle of Wight recorded a safety, as well, to cap the team’s scoring.

Portsmouth Christian did not enter the redzone until late in the fourth quarter, when they scored from five yards out.

“We started out in fairly good field position all game, and that made all the difference,” Chapman said. “We didn’t do that last week, and I feel that if we did, we could have done a little bit better against [Atlantic] Shores than we did.”

Isle of Wight will next play Virginia Commonwealth Conference rival Kenston Forest at 7 p.m. on Friday. It marks the Chargers’ second road contest of the season.

“Kenston has a new coach and they don’t have many kids on the team, so they’ve struggled a bit,” Chapman said while he was watching tape of the Kavaliers’ rain-shortened game Fishburne Military Academy. “I think we’ll be able to play our starters a little bit and then get them some rest for the rest of our season.”