Rockdale closed it’s district schedule in a positive manner with a 53-7 win over Academy Friday at Tiger Stadium.
Jace Robinson tied his career record of five touchdown passes in a game and Cam’Ron Valdez rushed for more than 200 yards for the seventh time this season.
“I’m pretty pleased with the way we played all-in-all,” said RHS football coach Jeff Miller. “It’s kind of hard to tell how we played but we did a lot of good things.
“That’s two in a row where we’ve played well and really fast.”
The Tigers took down an Academy team that has dealt with injuries much of the season. Junior quarterback Jerry Cephus, who led the Bumblebees to the playoffs in 2018, has been out most of the season.
Rockdale’s high-margin victory comes a week after beating Jarrell on the road 61-9.
The two wins come after a 61-44 loss to district champion Troy and a 31-3 loss to Cameron in the Battle of the Bell the following week.
“We feel better about ourselves than we did two weeks before,” Miller said. “We’re pretty fresh and we have a lot of confidence.
“We’re definitely going into the playoffs on a high note.”
PLAY-BY-PLAY–RHS got off to an explosive start when Robinson threw a pass to Anthony Dansby that he took down the right sideline for a 51-yard touchdown.
Rockdale scored twice more in the first on a 63-yard run by Valdez and a 21-yard slant route from Robinson to Kobe Mitchell. The blue-and-gold led 20-0.
Valdez scored again early in the second on a 14-yard run but Academy got their first points two minutes later on a 24-yard pass from Rian White to Jaylin McWilliams.
RHS made up for the Bumblebee TD with a 67-yard touchdown run by Valdez a minute later and another Robinson to Dansby collaboration for 24-yards in the final minute. Rockdale led 39-7 at halftime.
RHS scored twice more in the game on two Robinson passes. First, a 14-yard-er to Kesean Raven in the opening minute of the second half. His next one was a goal line pass to Ross Loth in the opening minute of the fourth.
RECORDS–Valdez passed Dailynn Ramey and Elijah Brooks to become third all-time on the career rushing list with his 206 yards in Friday’s game. He now has 2,745 yards behind Davion Ford’s 3,280 and Don Wesley’s record of 3,389. Wesley’s record has been untouched since 1977.
Robinson’s five touchdowns also put him closer to breaking school records. He tied David Franklin for second most TD passes in a season (33). He needs three to break Clayton Gibbs’ 2013 record of 35.
The junior QB also has 52 career touchdowns which is four short of the RHS record held by David Franklin.
Raven also moved up to seventh all-time on the career receiving yards list with 1, 221. Loth also has a chance to make the career receiving yards list needing 73 to become eighth all-time on the list that includes P.J. Williams, Jaquayln Crawford and Ross’s brother, Pearce Loth.
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