Room for improvement

By Shane Mettlen

Published: August 25, 2008

For all the hype surrounding last Friday’s scrimmage against Culpeper, Eastern View’s dominating 41-7 win against the Blue Devils was more or less meaningless. So on Monday, with the preseason in their rear view mirror, the Cyclones began looking to this week’s game at Louisa.

And this time it counts.

“We’re kind of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire,” EVHS coach Greg Hatfield said. “We’re going to be battle tested after this one, that’s for sure.”

While CCHS has the night off this Friday, Eastern View will face a test from the Lions, a perennial power who won the Jefferson District two years ago and made a trip to the state title game. This year Louisa is expected to compete with Monticello and Orange for the district title. The Cyclones know they will quickly find out just how good they are.

“The year before last year they were in the states so they have a good program,” EVHS senior Blake Smith said. “This game is way bigger than the game that was last Friday. This is the season opener and everybody wants to win the season opener.”

Despite the lopsided win against Culpeper, Hatfield and the Clones have plenty to work on heading into their first real contest. Eastern View had trouble with fumbles on shotgun snaps and on handoffs against the Devils and more than once a penalty called back after a huge gain. But EVHS showed great ability to break big plays with senior Cody Whitlock at quarterback and classmates Stevie Strother at running back and Smith at receiver.

“Practice is going to be tough this week,” Smith said. “We just got to stay focused and stay working on the little things so we can cut down on our penalties. We had a lot of dumb penalties that we shouldn’t have had, but we’ll fix them this week. You could say it was first game jitters or something like that, but we should be able to work it out.”
Hatfield said the focus in the days leading up to the Louisa game will be eliminating turnovers.

“We’re working on protecting the football,” he said. “We had a couple of what should have been costly turnovers, but we got a little lazy with the football. We’ve got to do a better job of that, but I see fixable mistakes.”

Get him the ball: When hired, EVHS coach Greg Hatfield said his goal was to identify the playmakers and get them the ball. Case in point: Blake Smith. Smith was a defensive standout for Culpeper last season, but had just four carries all season and no receptions on offense. Hatfield moved the new Cyclone to wide receiver and used him as a kick returner against CCHS, with tremendous results.

Smith officially had one catch for 34 yards, but he caught a pass and went more than 60 yards for a touchdown on the Cyclones first offensive play. That score was called back by a penalty, but Smith found the end zone again to start the second half when he returned the kickoff 80 yards.

Davis in limbo: Roger Davis, last season’s Cedar Run District co-defensive player of the year, is enrolled at Eastern View, but won’t play for the Cyclones this season because of eligibility issues.

Davis, who according to Rivals.com is being recruited by Clemson, Georgia, Maryland and Michigan, among others, was arrested last winter and charged with malicious wounding and attempted robbery. The charges were later suspended indefinitely after the alleged victim failed to show up to court. According to sources Davis could enroll at a private school such as Fork Union or Hargrave Military Academy to play football.

Shane Mettlen can be reached at 825-0771, ext. 127 or

Eastern View at Louisa
Friday, 7:30 p.m. at LCHS Stadium
757 Davis Highway, Mineral
On the Web: louisalions.com