BUENA VISTA, Va. – Maryville made it three wins in its last four games with a 45-7 thumping of Southern Virginia here Saturday afternoon.
The Scots improved to 3-1 in the USA South after completing a sweep of the league's bottom three teams in Greensboro, LaGrange and now SVU. Maryville finds itself in a third-place tie in the conference.
Maryville passed for 292 yards and rushed for another 198. Both of those numbers are just shy of head coach
Ben Fox's preferred minimums for each game, but he wasn't complaining too much.
"In a perfect world, we'd like to be at 300 yards passing and 200 yards rushing," Fox said. "We really like to run the ball to set up play-action passes and generate explosive plays."
First-year quarterback
Bryson Rollins finished 17-of-22 for 241 yards and four touchdowns against just one interception through three quarters of play. Maryville led 38-0.
"I'm really happy with Bryson," Fox said. "He really made only one not-great decision. He tried to give us a chance on a deep route that was intercepted when he underthrew it a little bit. But overall, he did a good job."
Another Lightning Strike to Start
Rollins' first TD of the day came on the opening series and went for 62 yards to
Steph Carter Jr. He hit
Kyelar Edwards for 11 yards, ran for a 19-yard TD, connected with
Kevon Samuels on a highlight-reel 27-yard play and then found
Trystin Wright for 24 yards and a score.
"The first touchdown pass, we had a play called for what we expected the look to be on defense." Fox said. "We got that look and he hit it exactly like we in wanted him to.
"We're glad that he is showing a lot of maturation and growth. He's carrying that over from the practice field to the games."
Thirteen different Maryville receivers made catches and nine different Scots had rushing attempts.
"We felt like we needed to spread it around today," Fox said. "Bryson does a good job of working through his progressions and throwing it to whomever the defense decides is going to be the one-on-one matchup."
Cooper Wick came off the bench and found
Jackson Noble for a 14-yard touchdown midway in the fourth to conclude the Scot scoring. Southern Virginia converted back-to-back fourth downs and scored its only touchdown with 4:21 remaining.
White, Henderson Guide Scots Defense
The Maryville defense allowed fewer than 10 points in a game for the first time since defeating North Carolina Wesleyan 13-6 in the Covid spring season of 2021.
Devon White was Maryville's tackles leader once again, this time with eight.
Grant Henderson added seven tackles and had five pass breakups.
Justin King had an interception for the Scots, and Maryville sacks went to
Mike Bethea and
Matt Walker.
Jacob Berven recovered a bad punt snap for his first collegiate touchdown, and he also punted one time for 40 yards to the Southern Virginia 4-yard line.
I'm really happy for our guys," Fox said. "Winning football games is hard. A lot of work, preparation, strain and effort goes into it, and I'm happy they were able to come on the road and get a win."
Maryville is back home for the next two weeks, hosting North Carolina Wesleyan for Homecoming and then Brevard for Senior Day. Every week remains an opportunity for the Scots to finish strong in 2022.
"It's a big challenge for us," Fox said. "Everybody we have left on our schedule was picked ahead of us, beginning with North Carolina Wesleyan. It's our Homecoming and we'll have a great crowd – we always do. It's nice to get these two road wins and be where we are heading into a difficult stretch."
