Woodrow Wilson welcomed a new member to its football family Friday night.

And the Flying Eagles celebrated in style, putting up 468 yards of offense — 353 on the ground — in a 30-13 win over Princeton at Van Meter Stadium.

Offensive coordinator Tim Carrico and wife Kelli announced the arrival of a new baby girl shortly before kickoff in a text message to the coaching staff.

With Carrico away, the Eagles’ coaching staff switched up roles, and the result was a big win over their southern coalfield rival.

“We’re all just real excited for coach Carrico,” Flying Eagles head coach John H. Lilly said. “And I’m really proud of my coaching staff. Coach (Street) Sarrett took over the play-calling and did an excellent job. The whole coaching staff did a great job and the kids played well.

“Our focus this week was to come back home and show we are a better team than we played last week (in a 26-0 loss to Cabell Midland). And I think we did that. I want to make it clear: That was a good football team we beat tonight. I told (Princeton coach) Ted (Spadaro) I wouldn’t be surprised if we met again somewhere down the line.”

While the game appeared lopsided, and ended that way, it was anything but after Princeton scored on its first drive of the second half.

But as the fourth quarter started, Woodrow struck on the play that turned the tide in favor of the 3-1 Flying Eagles.

Facing a second-and-23 at its own 28, sophomore signal caller Dominique Hairston dropped back, looking for his main target on the night, Vashawn Wood.

“The play we had called was a bubble screen to Vashawn,” Lilly said. “(The Princeton) defense flowed toward Vashawn and we slid Tyler Bowyer out on a wheel route. It’s something we worked on in practice this week.”

“I owe that one to our outside receiver, Meko Carter,” Bowyer said. “He made the corner bite and I was just running wide open. I saw how open I was when the ball was in the air. I just thought, ‘Catch it and run.’ And that’s what I did.”

He did, with a nice cutback at about the 10 that allowed him to reach the end zone.

“We made four mistakes and they capitalized on two of them,” Spadaro said. “You can’t give good teams that many chances to capitalize on mistakes because the good teams will take advantage. I give credit to Beckley.”

Bowyer’s score made it 23-13 with 7:36 left.

Beckley added another score, a 32-yard run by Wood, with 1:50 left to complete the scoring.

Woodrow led 16-6 at the half, behind the running of shifty tailback Rakeem Fowlkes, who led the Flying Eagles with 142 yards on the ground.

Fowlkes scored on the Eagles’ first possession, on a 29-yard run, set up by a 31-yard run by Hairston.

A fumble at the 1 on their next possession ended one scoring threat — Wood appeared to score but was ruled to have stepped out-of-bounds on that possession.

“After leaving all those points on the field last week, it was a concern,” Lilly said of the mistakes that cost the Eagles points in the loss to Cabell Midland. “What is it Yogi Berra said, it was like deja vu all over again. All of our mistakes are coming on that same (goal-line) formation. We may end up throwing that in the trash can.”

Wood returned a punt on the next Woodrow possession, helping set up a Fowlkes’ 13-yard run to paydirt.

A 14-play, 70-yard Princeton drive resulted in the Tigers’ first points when Jerrell Powell scored on a 13-yard run with :38.6 seconds left.

But Woodrow was able to get into field goal range, thanks in part to a 30-yard Wood run, and Adam Cook kicked a 30-yard field goal as time expired in the half.

Princeton then scored on its first possession of the second half, Justin Lester scoring on a 1-yard plunge, to make it 16-13.

“At that point we had the momentum and I thought we were in pretty good shape,” Spadaro said. “It’s just a matter of a couple of mistakes.”

Wood added 121 yards for the Eagles and Hairston threw for 115 yards and added 58 yards on the ground.

Lester had 75 yards on the ground for Princeton and Powell added 72.

Tevin Allen, the Tigers’ leading ground gainer with 236 yards in the Tigers’ (2-1) first two games, was limited due to an ankle injury.

“I mean, it didn’t help, but I wasn’t going to risk a kid’s health for a game,” Spadaro said.

As for Woodrow and the new arrival, Lilly said mother, child and father are doing just fine.

As are the Eagles, perched at 3-1 on the season.

Woodrow visits Laidley Field in Charleston to take on Capital next week while Princeton is at Ripley.



Woodrow Wilson 30, Princeton 13

P (2-1) 0 6 7 0 — 13

WW (3-1) 7 9 0 14 — 30

First Quarter

WW: Rakeem Fowlkes 29 run (Adam Cook kick), 8:25

Second Quarter

WW: Fowlkes 13 run (run failed), 6:23

P: Jerrell Powell 13 run (kick failed), 0:38.6

WW: Cook 30 field goal, 0:00.0

Third Quarter

P: John Lester 1 run (Garrison Shay kick), 6:05

Fourth Quarter

WW: Tyler Bowyer 72 pass from Dominique Hairston (Cook kick), 7:36

WW: Vashawn Wood 32 run (Cook kick), 1:50

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — P: Austin Harris 4-(-2), John Lester 8-75, Jerrell Powell 19-72, Josh White 4-13, Tevin Allen 1-21, Aaron Bailey 1-1. WW: Rakeem Fowlkes 15-146, Dominique Hairston 7-58, Josh Williams 6-25, Ryan Stafford 1-3, Vashawn Wood 13-121, Lance Martin 1-0.

PASSING — P: Harris 4-9-0-25-0. WW: Hairston 5-9-1-115-1.

RECEIVING — P: Powell 2-(-4), D.J. Steele 1-8, Josh Ferguson 1-24. WW: Wood 4-43, Tyler Bowyer 1-72-1.

TURNOVERS — P: Austin Harris (FR), Josh White (int). WW: none.