Published: August 15, 2008 11:57 pm         

New season, old look for Rockville

CLAYTON — The reality show that was the Rockville Rox’ 2007 high school football season, a 14-1 record and runner-up finish to Sheridan in the Class A state championship game, officially came to an end Friday night with the practice scrimmage at Cascade High School.

“You can say [this is a new season] all you want, but until this specific team steps on the field it’s very hard to put a season away like what we had last year,” Rockville coach Herb King said.

It’s a new season, but the Rox had a very familiar look in the controlled scrimmage. Rockville scored a lot and gave up very little.

Led by senior quarterback Matt King, the Rox scored 11 touchdowns while the defense allowed just one touchdown.

With the varsity and junior varsity squads all seeing action, Rockville rolled up 466 yards of total offense while holding the younger Cascade Cadets to 144 yards.

“You noticed there weren’t very many rah-rahs. [The Rox] didn’t feel like they had played to their capability and that’s a good thing for us,” coach King said.

Quarterback King completed 7 of 8 passes for 111 yards and four touchdowns. In the second offensive series, King hooked up with 6-foot-5 senior Aaron Bridge twice and 6-5 junior Drew Kelley twice.

With three new starters — Nick Wheeler, Billy Bettis and Levi Berry — on the line, Rockville’s offense racked up six first downs and scored twice in the first 15 offensive plays of the night.

“After about the first six or seven plays I thought [Wheeler, Bettis and Berry] settled down and blocked pretty decent for their first attempt at varsity football on the offensive line,” coach King said.

Freshman quarterback Clint White capped the night for the Rox, running for two touchdowns while completing 3 of 4 passes for 71 yards and a touchdown to classmate Derek Gregg.

Rockville entered the scrimmage auditioning linebackers. Zach Clapp and Kyle Fahey graduated, so the Rox are looking for two linebackers to join returnee Jake Lee. No less than six different players into the inside and outside linebacker positions throughout the game.

“We’re not as far along defensively as we would like to be right now,” coach King said, pointing out technique errors that must be corrected before the opener with Wabash River Conference rival Seeger.



Scoring plays

R — Caleb McMullen 3 run

R — Steven Ball 31 pass from Matt King

C — Justin Helmick 2 run

R — Aaron Bridge 10 pass from King

R — Drew Kelley 16 pass from King

R — Kelley 10 pass from King

R — Bridge 10 pass from King

R — King 13 run

R — Brad Suiters 2 run

R — Clint White 9 run

R — White 26 run

R — Derek Gregg 35 pass from White

Next game — Rockville travels to Seeger to open the season next Friday.