September 14, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Campbell breaks tackles, rushes, cuts his way to a CHA victory
by Ed Mahon

Rashad Campbell made it sound simple. When asked about his strengths, the Chestnut Hill Academy junior thought for a moment and said, “Strengths? I’m not the fastest guy, but I bring quickness, and like, desire. And also just reading the line, cause the blocks open up. The line gets thin, the blocks open up and everything works out from there.”

On Saturday’s away game against Murrell Dobbins Tech (1-1) everything did work out for the Blue Devils (1-0). They picked up for their first win of the season, in a non-league game, thanks in no small part to Campbell’s five touchdowns, 165 rushing yards, and some momentum-shifting long runs.

So maybe for the 5-foot-8, 170-pound running back it is simple. “As a tailback, you’re a natural or you’re not. And he’s a natural,” said Chestnut Hill head coach Rick Knox after the 40-12 win. Since Campbell, as Knox said, has a low center of gravity, an ability to see holes open up and then the quickness to cut through them, it’s simple.

However, just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy. Just look at when Campbell doesn’t break tackles, like when there was less than a minute to go in the first half, and the Blue Devils were running out the clock. It still took a pile of guys to bring Campbell down.

But the highlights, those moments when Campbell made the game look simple, emerged throughout the day. That was the theme: Campbell breaks a tackle, cuts, and scores. Circumstances changed—sometimes it came after junior quarterback Mike Mattei lead the Blue Devils down the field, sometimes it came out of nowhere—but it was usually the same: Campbell breaks tackles, cuts, and scores.

During their second offensive series, the Devils marched down the field with some smooth passing and nice runs, including one from the other tailback, senior Sean Fitzpatrick, who ran for 99 yards on 8 carries for the day. Campbell finished the drive at the beginning of the second quarter by breaking three tackles to dive in the end zone. That plus the extra point made the score 14-0

Dobbins rebounded. Quarterback Wesley Brown threw a long pass that brought Dobbins to the 20-yard-line, and then followed it with a throw to running back Darrell Brown to bring the score to 14-6.

The long passes disappointed Knox. “You can’t do all that hard work and then all of a sudden, one play, you know, brings the game back in,” he said. But he liked the way his team prevented Dobbins from picking up more momentum. “When they got that life, we were able to rebound and keep going.”

On the two point conversion attempt, junior Alex Logue had one of the two key defensive plays of the day when he tackled Darrell Brown trying to come around the outside. (Later, the 5-foot-8, 155-pound defensive back would intercept a pass in the third quarter to seal the win.)

With the score 14-6, Dobbins almost closed in. Chestnut Hill fumbled on their next offensive series. Their defense held, but when Dobbins punted, the Mustangs almost recovered the ball after it bounced off of a Chestnut Hill player. Then Campbell scored a touchdown. Just like that. On the first play of the series, with 4:17 to go in the half, he ran more than 40 yards, making the score 20-6.

Then Campbell scored another touchdown. This time he broke two hits on a punt return and ran down the field to make it 26-6 with 1:46 to go before halftime.

Then Campbell scored another touchdown. The junior started the second half by receiving the kick off and ran the ball for the first play in a Chestnut Hill drive that ended with the touchdown, brining the Devils’ lead to 33-6, and effectively ending the game with 7:43 left in the third quarter.

The win was especially gratifying for Knox. “The first game of the year’s very special because, literally, you put months of effort into it, months of preparation, and it’s a real shame when you do that and you kinda lay an egg,” Knox said. “And we didn’t.

Other highlights included:

Junior quarterback Mike Mattei completed three of four passes for 50 yards and rushed five times to pick up 40 yards.

Junior wide receiver Vaughn Smith recovered a fumble to score a touchdown.

Chestnut Hill’s defensive line, lead by junior Tim Gramlich and senior co-captain Wayne Crawford put pressure on Dobbins’ quarterback Wesley Brown throughout the game, causing him to fumble the ball, and sacking him for a combined loss of negative 42 yards.

And Rashad Campbell would like to thank his lineman—Crawford, senior co-captain Don Houc, Gramlich, junior Alex Scott, junior Mike Wismer, and the rest of his offense.

Chestnut Hill’s next game is against Lawrenceville School at home—Sep. 9 at 2:30 p.m.