on the sidelines with dan sousa
By: Dan Sousa
Sterling (Nov. 2, 2006) – It was only a matter of time before Park
View High School running back Deric Dudinski broke the school’s
all-time career rushing record, but you have to admire the fact that
the talented senior was able to shatter Tony Conway’s 18-year-old mark
in a game that really counted.
Dudinski may wear No. 2 but he is now No. 1 as he gained 319 yards
Monday in a key 35-14 win over Potomac Falls. The Patriots only need to
win one of their final two games in order to make the AA Region II
Division 4 playoffs, but Park View would much rather win both and claim
the Dulles District title by themselves. Last year Park View was the
only AA Loudoun team to advance to the playoffs but the Patriots had to
share the Dulles crown with Heritage after Loudoun County upset the
Patriots in the final week of the regular-season.
The Patriots will no doubt be looking for a little revenge this
Friday against County which isn’t really fair to the 2006 Raider squad
which is struggling through a winless season. Coming into Monday’s game
it appeared that Dudinski would pass Conway’s career 5,167-yard mark
against County as he would need 300-plus against a stellar Potomac
Falls defense.
That must have sounded like a challenge to Dudinski as he went 89
yards on his second touch Monday for the first of four touchdowns,
three of them 45 yards or longer, to lead Park View past Potomac Falls.
For the record, Dudinski now has 5,188 career yards and he has
rushed for 1,651 yards this season. He now needs 693 yards to break
Conway’s single-season rushing record of 2,344 set in 1988. If you know
your Loudoun football history, 1988 is the year that Conway and
Patriots captured the one-and-only VHSL state title ever won by a
Loudoun school.
Dudinski, surrounded by family and friends on the field after
Monday’s hard-hitting, intense affair, said he would gladly trade in a
1,000-yard season any day for what Conway and his teammates achieved —
a state title. You only have to flip through the Park View program to
page 11 and read Dudinski’s bio as supplied by the senior himself, it
is short and to the point as it simply reads: 12-9-06.
That is the date of the AA state title game this year and that
number has been a theme all year for Park View. I have to admit when I
first heard all the “12-9-06” talk in the summer, I thought maybe the
team should focus on a winning season first. After all, Andy Hill in
his first season in 2005 as coach led Park View to the playoffs but the
Patriots also finished just 5-6 overall.
Hill, Dudinski and the rest of the Park View faithful, however, knew
something that I and others didn’t know. That this team, with a core of
seniors together since their sophomore year when they went 8-2 but
missed the playoffs, were ready to put all the pieces together.
And they have Dudinski, a special player when he has the ball, but
as I looked at his helmet Monday and saw all the mud caked around the
face mask, I was reminded of several plays during the game that had
nothing to do with rushing yards but told a story about what a complete
football player he is.
On the first play it was 2nd-and-11 from midfield for Park View in
the second quarter with the score tied 7-7 and momentum — if not the
officiating calls — swinging towards the Panthers. Having driven down
the field to open the game, only to have a field goal blocked, the
Panthers had responded to Dudinski’s 89-yard touchdown with a great
70-yard scoring drive that showcased the hard-nosed running of Mustafa
Abugideiri and David Logan.
The Panthers executed a squib kickoff that was fielded by Park
View’s 287-pound workhorse Corbin Barnes. Hill has devised a
squib-deterrant this year — placing Barnes and 28o-pound Thomas
Mulabah behind the first line to return any short kicks. Have you ever
seen a 280-pound returner rumbling down the field for 10 yards before
any defenders arrive? They might as well blow one of those “blast
horns” that go off before they dynamite around the new home sites.
There is going to be an explosion. It might be safer to throw yourself
in front of a moving Humvee.
(Personally, if I’m on the kickoff team facing Park View, I’d slip a
$20 to my kicker and tell him to kick it deep or out of bounds. Then
again, my motto in tackle football was “safety first”. Of course I’m
still searching for those “Lost” recruiting letters.)
On Park View’s first down, Dudinski appeared to fumble but the play
was whistled down on contact — the first of two times on the night
that such a call would go against Potomac Falls. Three plays later,
Dudinski took a sweep pitch and then handed it to Amechi Anyaugo on the
reverse. Anyaugo got to the corner and reversed his field, heading back
towards Dudinski and the Park View running back sprung his teammate for
a 48-yard run to the Panther 2 with a devastating block on a Potomac
Falls defender, so zeroed in on the ballcarrier, that he never saw
Dudinski’s hit. Let’s just say both cleats of the defender were up in
the air.
That play was called back on a Park View penalty but three plays
later, Dudinski turned what USC used to call Student Body right, your
basic sweep play, into a 46-yard sprint to the end zone. It was 14-7
Park View and Dudinski had 168 yards on just seven attempts.
The second Dudinski play came in the third quarter after scores on
the first three possessions of the second half, two of them by Park
View. The path to the end zone was much different for the Patriots and
Panthers.
Park View, trying to make a statement, took the opening kickoff and
proceeded to give the ball to Dudinski five straight plays. By the time
the 59-yard scoring drive was over, the Patriots had showed their
diversity. For sure, it isn’t all Dudinski. On 3rd-and-10, for example,
Park View quarterback C.J. Leizear dropped back and looked to throw a
screen pass to Anyaugo in the right flat. It was a fake, however, as he
whipped his head to the left and there was Dudinski running the same
screen pattern in the flat.
If you are on defense on this point, your blood pressure shoots up,
Dudinski can not be allowed to grab the ball with open field, and a
blocker to boot, in front of him.
That too, however, was a fake … as Leizear calmly found the
intended targer all along, Ryan Pick, floating free 14 yards up the
field. He was all alone beyond the first down marker because the
Panther linebackers had to respect the two screens. Such a
well-designed and executed play speaks volumes to how much Hill’s
program has progessed in his short tenure.
Later in the drive, on 4th-and-4, they sent Dudinski out to the left
flat again and this time he got the pass and picked up 18 yards. On the
next play, from the 11, all eyes were on Dudinski running left but
Anyaugo got the ball on a trap play to the right and it only took one
broken tackle to get into the end zone.
The Panthers didn’t want to waste all that much time trying to
score. On their first play after Park View went ahead 21-7, sophomore
quarterback Greg Woodlief dropped back in the pocket and heaved it
about as far as he could and fellow sophomore Chad McMichael ran under
the pass inside the 10 and scored for the 47-yard score. Woodlief to
McMichael is a call you might hear over and over again in the next two
seasons. They have already set the school mark for longest touchdown
pass. Potomac Falls might want to invest in some White Out for the
record book as these two are developing a great chemistry.
Park View was right back at it, marching down the field and Dudinski
broke the 200-yard mark as he took it inside the 20. On 3rd-and-4 from
the 9, the game changed on a controversial call as Anyuago appeared to
loose the ball before he was down. The ball plopped right into the
hands of a Panther who started to head towards the other end zone but
the officials were blowing the play dead on contact. The Panther
defender let his emotions get the best of him and he spiked the ball
down in frustration and that drew a penalty flag that turned 4th-and-3
from the 8 into 1st-and-goal at the 4. Dudinski’s score from the 2 made
it 28-14 with 2:34 to play in the third quarter.
Potomac Falls, which one Dulles District coach in the stands Monday,
called the most improved team in the district this year under
first-year coach Scott Woodlief, came right back and it appeared that
the Panthers would make it a one-touchdown game again after Logan
busted through the line and was headed for the end zone. There was,
however, one lone man to beat and that would be Dudinski, who not only
fought off a stiff-arm challenge from Logan but managed to swipe the
ball loose. The Panthers recoverd and scored five players later to end
any hopes of a Potomac Falls comeback.
Dudinski would play one more series and he would pick up all 57
yards on the Patriots final scoring drive of the night — the final 53
on his last carry. Somewhere along the way, on that final run, he
passed several Panther defenders who couldn’t hold their footing on a
muddy turf, and he passed Conway, whose playing days were long over.
12-9-06 indeed.
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