An Essay to LBHS football by Thomas Ayers
From a young team to a dominant Lord Botetourt football team in 2019.
In 2012 Athletic Director Chuck Pound announced that Jamie Harless would be the new head coach for the Lord Botetourt Cavaliers. In his 1st year as the head coach, they finished the 6-5 and lost to William Byrd 23-0 in the 1st Round of the playoffs.
In 2013 and 2014 they started getting things together as a football team, but in 2015 history was made for the Cavaliers. They made it to the 1st State Championship in school history after they defeated Hopewell 28-17 in the State Semifinals. They lost to Magna Vista 47-21 in the championship game and whata lot of people were wondering is would they make it back to the championship in 2016 and 2017?
They continued to be successful but falling short on getting back to the State Playoffs. Then last year that quickly changed. They made it back to the State Semifinals but fell to Heritage 42-39 on a rainy day. So coming into the 2019 season and entering his 8th season as the head coach for Lord Botetourt, Coach Jamie Harless came in with a win record of 64-22 overall with the Cavaliers.
In 2019, they are 14-0 and last Saturday in the State Semifinals they got their revenge against Heritage 25-14. Now they are back in the State Championship for the 1st time since 2015.
I bet Coach Harless and the team put a countdown clock in the locker room and put beat Heritage on top of the countdown clock.
The loss of their duel threat quarterback Evan Eller who is out for the season was really hard but however their backup quarterback James Ryan -Salvi has stepped up and shown leadership for the team after Eller got hurt. The whole team plays as one. Hunter Rice is back running and getting yardage.
So the way I see it about Lord Botetourt ever since Harless took over in 2012 he has made this football program a competitive one. I have tremendous amount of respect for him and his coaching staff and the Lord Botetourt Cavaliers.
I have a friendship with Coach Harless and he’s a great man and a great coach for Lord Botetourt.
When you look at this team on paper, these guys don’t mess around on the field when it comes to football. They’ll come and tackle you plus they got good players. They don’t make very many turnovers on offense. They run hard and score. They will make a lot of tackles and force a lot of turnovers on defense. So coming into this weekend they are on the verge of winning their 1st Football State Championship in school history.
Not only they are on the verge of winning their 1st State Championship, but they are also on a mission on being the 1st football team in Botetourt County to go a perfect season through the play-offs. The championship game is on Saturday 12 o’clock at Williams Stadium on the campus of Liberty University. Admission is $10.00 so come on out and support these guys.
–Thomas Ayers, High School Sports Correspondent for The Botetourt Bee
Photo by Cathy Benson
