Radford played hard but up short as they lost to the Giles Spartans 35-27 in a game played at Pearisburg. The Spartans were led by running back Brian Mann as he carried the football 41 times for 284 yards and scored four touchdowns. Giles ( 6-1) had 361 total yards for the game ,all on the ground.
Radford playing without star running back Heth Grant and wide receiver Mike Vick, battled the Spartans and was only down 14-7 at halftime. Quarterback Marcus Finley completed 11 of 16 passes for 171 yards and threw for a touchdown. He also rushed for 95 yards on 14 rushes and scored a touchdown. Markell Thompson seeing more time at running back scored twice on runs of seven and twenty eight yards, he finished with six carries for 55 yards.
Giles scored first on a Mann 19 yard run but Radford would answer , with a Finley 41 yarder to tie the game at seven after the opening stanza. Giles would go back up 14-7 on a Anthony Meadows one yard run going into halftime. Mann bullied his way into the end zone with 2:55 left in the third quarter on a seven yard run.
Radford( 5-2) would answer that with a Thompson 28 yard run around left end but the two-point conversion run fell short. Then Giles got a 34 yard jaunt from Mann to make the score 28-13 with 10:44 remaining in the game. Once again Radford would battle right back with Thompson scoring on a seven yard run. On the point after Radford was called for not having enough men on one of the ball and were backed. They was then called for an unsportsmanlike penalty and the Bobcats point after try was from 40 yards out that fell a couple yards short.
The two teams would exchange touchdowns in the last 1:30 of the game. The Bobcats head coach Matthew Saunders said,” I like how we battled and competed. Giles is a very good football team. I’m proud of our guys, of their effort. Giles held the ball by rushing the ball as they do and probably had three times more plays than we did.”
Radford will try to regroup and will travel to Auburn to take on the Jack turner led Auburn Eagles. Kickoff is at 7 pm this Friday .
R- 7 0 6 14-27
G- 7 7 7 14-35