Westwood Holds Off Blythewood in Crosstown Rivalry

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer HSSR

Columbia - Homecoming, the Region 5-5A opener, and a spirited crosstown rivalry converged into one charged football game before a packed house at Blythewood’s District Two Stadium Friday night.

In the fifth game of the Battle for the Axe, Westwood rallied from a 10-7 deficit early in the third quarter to take a 20-10 lead by the end of that frame and held on for a 20-17 victory over Blythewood to retain the Jeanne Schmidt Memorial Trophy.

Jovan Howard rushed for 127 yards, including a 64-yard touchdown run, Angelo Rios ran for a score and caught a TD pass, and Carrington Carter passed for 180 yards and two scores to lead the Redhawks (4-1) to their first region victory of the season.

Since 2012 when Westwood first fielded a football team, the Redhawks lead the rivalry 6-5. Since the Jeanne Schmidt Memorial Trophy, an oversized blue-and-red axe that Westwood won last year with a 7-0 victory over Blythewood in 2024, Westwood leads the series 3-2. 

With Blythewood playing a lot of man-to-man coverage, Westwood head coach Stephen Burris said the team worked on playing against all facets of man in practice.

“Our challenge this week was for our offensive line to control all those extra guys in the box, and our receivers need to go one-on-one,” he said. “I thought they did a good job of it. We missed some deep shots and that’s going to happen, but you’ve got to throw it to at least show that you will throw it. I thought Carry did a great job of managing the game and doing what we asked him to do. Our receivers made plays when they had to be made, and overall it was a great team win.”

For the Bengals (2-3), Landyn Strong rushed for 115 yards, including a 79-yard touchdown run, and James Veasey threw a touchdown pass to Ben Hendrix.

Besides the rushing and scoring highlights, Friday night was a night of turnovers. Westwood had three lost fumbles and an interception, while Blythewood lost three fumbles and threw two interceptions.

“They did a great job adjusting to what we were doing to them in the first half,” Burris said of Blythewood. “I thought we moved the ball all night long. We got inside the red zone three times but had three turnovers, and then we turned it over again on the interception.”

Westwood moved up and down the field with ease in the first half, racking up 211 total yards–134 through the air and 77 on the ground, but takeaways by the Bengals defense proved costly.

Bengals placekicker Ashton Davis made good on a 26-yard field goal late in the first quarter, but Westwood drove quickly down field and took a 7-3 lead on Carter’s short pass to Rios, who stretched the play into a 24-yard touchdown with 48 seconds left in the first quarter.

Westwood recovered a Blythewood fumble after that touchdown pass and marched downfield, looking to take a two-possession lead. Jovan Howard seemed to set Westwood up in the red zone on a long run toward the end zone. Blythewood defenders met Howard hard at the 11-yard line and he coughed up the football.

Westwood had one fumble in the first quarter, but Howard’s fumble was the first of three straight Redhawk turnovers in the second quarter. Burris said the team could have been bothered by the takeaways, but that wasn’t the case.

“I’m proud of these kids for just sticking with it and staying in the fight and not getting frustrated,” he said.

When play resumed in the third quarter Westwood punted twice and Blythewood fumbled the ball away. After the Redhawks’ second punt, Blythewood took over at its own 10-yard line and got a first down on Vesey’s 11-yard pass to Strong.

On the next play the Bengals offensive line sprung Strong, who sprinted down the right side of the field for a 79-yard touchdown run. That score gave Blythewood a 10-7 lead at the 4:13 mark of the third.

Westwood responded in kind with a chunk play of its own. Taking over at its own 20, the Redhawks drove to the 36-yard line on five plays. On the sixth play Howard took the hand off and broke through the lines and bolted 64 yards to the left side of the end zone to give Westwood a 13-10 lead with 1:03 left in the third.

Before that play, Westwood went for it on fourth and 1 at its own 29-yard line. Carter’s 2-yard pass to Miles Grant moved the sticks and set up Howard’s scamper.

“We’re going to take risks on offense,” Burris said. “We only got two yards, and it wasn’t like we set the world on fire, but the kids did a great job executing at that moment, Carry did a good job of getting the ball out to Miles and Miles did a good job of getting the yards. A couple of plays late Jovan Howard rips off one and we take control of the game.”

Blythewood’s second fumble of the half happened on the first play from scrimmage after the kickoff. Westwood recovered at the Blythewood 25-yard line and one play later Rios rushed into the end zone from 24 yards out to give the Redhawks a 20-7 lead in the last seconds of the third.

Blythewood struggled to move the ball in the fourth quarter, but in the final three minutes the Bengals put together a quick scoring drive that Veasey capped with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Hendrix with 1:57 to play.

The Blythewood defense forced a turnover on downs with 1:03 left and the Bengals were set up at their own 48-yard line. Veasey moved his team slightly into Westwood territory, but a long pass inside the 20-yard line fell into the hands of a Westwood defender along the visiting sidelines to end the Bengals’ chance to win.

Westwood’s offense took the field in the shadow of the goalposts and kneeled on the ball to let the last few seconds tick away.

“I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day of the week,” Burris said. “Going 1-0 in the region matters most.”

The Redhawks play host to Ridge View (2-2), which was idle last week. The Blazers’ two losses came as single score defeats on the road to defending 5A champions Dutch Fork (Division I) and Northwestern (Division II).

“We’ve got a really really good team coming to our place next week, so it’s back to work,” Burris said.

Blythewood travels to Spring Valley (2-3), which lost 54-0 at Sumter.

Westwood    7         0         13       0         –         20

Blythewood 3         0         7         7         –          17

First Quarter

B - Ashton Davis 26 field goal 3:09 

W - Angelo Rios 24 pass from Carington Carter (Mushin Yakubu kick) :48 

Third Quarter

B - Landyn Strong 79 run (Davis kick) 4:13 

W - Jovan Howard 64 run (kick failed) 1:03

W - Rios 24 run (Yakubu kick) :14

Fourth Quarter

B - Ben Hendrix 12 pass from James Veasey (Davis kick) 1:57

WHS  BHS

First downs            19                  12

Rushes-yds       39-210           31-99

Passing yds          180               148

Att-Com-Int      16-19-1        15-22-2

Fumbles-lost        3-3              5-3

Penalties-yds      5-50            9-81

Punts-avg          3-39.0         4-46.8

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING

  W - Javon Howard 11-127. Angelo Rios 20-88. Carrington Carter 7-(-9), Quentin McGill 1-4.

   B - Landyn Strong 17-115, James Veasey 9-1, Braden Mayre 4-(-8), Team 1-(-9).

PASSING

  W - Carrington Carter 16-19-1.

   B - James Veasey 15-22-2.

RECEIVING

  W - Quentin McGill 5-60, Angelo Rios 4-61, Javon Howard 3-44, Miles Grant 2-10, Tyrek Jenkins 1-2, Kham Cunningham 1-3.

   B - Chance Johnson 4-57, Braden Marye 3-27, Jordan Greaves 2-27, Ben Hendrix 2-19, Ryan Hall 2-10, Amari Fisher 1-4, Tay’Shawn Johnson 1-4.