Radford…Finally! That’s what a lot of the Radford coaches and fans were heard saying as they won their first game of the season 24-7 over Alleghany . Making it even sweeter, it was Bobcat homecoming. Bailee Cox was named the Queen and Eric Burdette was named the King of the homecoming court. Burdette started chemotherapy this week after being diagnosed with cancer just over two weeks ago halting his football season.
Freshman P J Prioleau scored touchdowns on runs of 24 and 35 yards. He also threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Josh Alley off a fake punt that put the game on ice with 3:32 left in the game. In addition he rushed for 103 yards on 13 carries.
Alleghany (1-3) got their only points of the game on a 66-yard pass interception by Antonius Gayflorsee with just 32 seconds left in the first quarter. Nathaniel Rusmisel had seven rushes for 61 yards and Zach Humphries had 48 yards on five carries.
Radford got on the scoreboard first as freshman Conner Lytton hit a 20-yard field goal with 5:51 showing in the first quarter.
Radford would drive to to the 45 of Alleghany and then Gayflorsee intercepted Radford’s Trace Shepherd pass and raced down the Radford sideline for a 66-yard touchdown and the point after put the Mountaineers up 7-3.
The Bobcats (1-4), with 4:30 before intermission, pitched the ball out to Prioleau around the right end and he turned up field and scampered 24 yards for the touchdown. Lytton’s kick put the Cats up 10-7 going into halftime.
Radford would receive the second half kick-off and drive down to the Alleghany 35 . Prioleau would take a pitch out and race 35 yards for six. Lytton’s point after made it 17-7 Radford at the 9:40 mark of the third period. They would control Alleghany defensively for second half and Radford would get their last score as Prioleau took a snap and started to his right and then pulled up and hit a wide open Josh Alley on a 40-yard touchdown pass to put the finishing touch on a homecoming win.
“I’m happy for the kids on this win,” said a happy and relieved head coach Matthew Saunders. “I felt like this was our first game with the changes we made this week in practice. We went back to some things, and we have a lot of work to do to put in more of the offense this coming week.“
When asked about having the ball down at the one yard line, second down and lost five yards then ended up kicking a field goal, Coach Saunders replied, “That’s one of the things we have to work on. We were going to use the belly series, but Alleghany had their goal line in and we didn’t do well. That’s my fault and we have work to do. Defensively we played extremely well again tonight.”
Radford had 325 yards of offense as they scored the most points in a game for the season. A number of changes occurred this past week in practice and it paid off as they got their first win.
They will now go on the road as they travel to Pearisburg to take on Giles next Friday. Kick off is scheduled for 7:00 pm .

Radford 3 7 7 7 – 24
Alleghany 7 0 0 0 – 7

First Downs – Radford -14, Alleghany – 11

Rushing – Radford – 195 yds., Alleghany- 156

Passing – Radford – 130 yds., Alleghany – 59

Penalties – Radford – 6 -42 yds., Alleghany – 1-15 yds.