Patriots outscore South River, 48-26

No. 5 Old Mill completed a packed week Friday with a 48-26 decision over host South River in an Anne Arundel County league game.

Just four days earlier, the defending Class 4A champ Patriots (5-1, 5-1 Anne Arundel) took down Southern-Anne Arundel, 35-19, in a rescheduled match frmatch.om last weekend.

“I think this was a pretty good win for us,” said Old Mill coach Damian Ferragamo. “Two games in one week against a 3-1 [Southern-AA] team and a 4-1 [South River] and come out 2-0, I feel pretty good about it as we are trying to make the playoffs again.”

Old Mill’s running back tandem was great once again as Demond Brown rushed for 207 yards and three touchdowns while teammate Robert Chesson rushed for 114 and two touchdowns.

It didn’t take long for the Old Mill offense to get going as it opened with a seven play, 75-yard drive, capped off by a 10-yard touchdown run by Brown. Brown, who’s being recruited by Towson University, broke a 55-yard run on the Patriots’ second possession.

Four plays later Deonte Shields found Leroy Mapp for a seven-yard touchdown pass as the Patriots held a 14-0 advantage in the first quarter.

“We wanted to jump on them [South River] good and step on their throat right away,” said Brown. “We knew that this was a good team and we wanted to score on them every chance we got and put the pedal to the metal.”

After a blocking an Old Mill field goal attempt, South River (4-2, 4-2 Anne Arundel) went on a 10 play, 53-yard drive with Lavon Chaney going into the end zone from four yards out, re-energizing the Seahawks. The momentum was stymied as Old Mill converted a pair of Shane Lee interceptions into touchdowns a 28-7 advantage.

South River drove to Old Mill’s seven, but Lee, under pressure by Rafael Kess and Joe McCargo, threw his fourth interception as Torrie Wagner weaved 93 yards the opposite way for a touchdown. The Patriot defense scored 21 points off of four Seahawk turnovers in the first half.

“We [Old Mill] intercepted the ball like crazy and then they started coming in bunches,” said Ferragamo. “We have a lot good guys [on defense] and we got a lot pressure on the quarterback and forced some bad throws and we got points off of interceptions.”

Sophomore quarterback Conner Cox came in the second half for South River, and completed 10 of 16 for 154 yards, and ran for 31 yards. Chaney added two touchdown runs of his own in the second half, but it wasn’t enough.

With the victory, Old Mill strengthen its position for the Class 4A East Region playoffs.

The Patriots return to Millersville to winless Glen Burnie (0-6) next Friday.

“It’s time to start to thinking about the playoffs, you got to think about, we [Old Mill] are still trying to qualify but we have a long to go and it’s a big week to get all of those points we accumulated this week,” said Ferragamo.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks find themselves on the outside of the postseason picture. South River has lost their last two home games and they are 1-2 since senior running back Blane Klinerichert when down with injury in a loss to Broadneck.

Even though Klinerichert physical status is still unknown, South River knows it has depth with Chaney and Cox.

“Lavon [Chaney] has picked it up, it’s going to be a very interesting competition with two different kinds of runners,” said South River coach Steve Erxleben.

“He’s [Cox] cool and collected, he understands the offense and I don’t worry about him being in there,” said Erxleben.  “Shane [Lee] is our leader he is a senior but Connor has always pushed him practice and I think that has made Shane better. I wasn’t that I put Conner in there and I won’t worry about it if we have to do it next week.”

Next week, South River will have to figure out Arundel quarterback Nick Rosati and the high-powered Wildcats’ offense next weekend.

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