Caissons’ Historic Season Comes to an End

Recap courtesy of Chris Graham, Augusta Free Press
Photos by Cadet Thaddeus Edwards ’14

Fishburne Military School dropped a heartbreaker to North Cross in the VISAA state football semifinals, 27-21, Saturday afternoon in Waynesboro.  The loss brings to an end the most successful season in FMS school history. The last time Fishburne had started 8-0 in football was 1913.

Fishburne trailed 14-0 at the half and 20-7 after three quarters, but the Caissons made a game of it in the fourth quarter before falling to North Cross, 27-21, in the Virginia Independent Schools state football semifinals.

A pair of fourth-quarter touchdown runs by sophomore tailback Robert Smith, a 49-yarder on a fourth-and-three play with 11:50 to go, and a 14-yarder with 3:40 to go, brought the Caissons (8-1) to within a score. The FMS defense then came up big, forcing a Max Revercomb incomplete pass on a third-and-eight at midfield to force a Raider punt with 2:08 left.

Fishburne (8-1) had the ball and a chance to win, but a holding penalty on a second-down run pushed the Caissons back, and Jordan Lowery intercepted a Hunter Couchot pass at the North Cross 40 with 51 seconds left to seal the deal.

North Cross jumped out on top with 3:30 left in the first quarter on a 17-yard TD pass from Revercomb to Lowery. A Ryan Dent 3-yard touchdown run at the 2:56 mark of the second quarter made it 14-0 North Cross at the half.

Fishburne got back into it on a 1-yard run by Couchot at the 7:32 mark of the third quarter that had been set up by a 75-yard run by Couchot earlier in the drive.

Revercomb connected with Dent on a 7-yard touchdown pass with 4:29 to go to push the lead to 20-7.

North Cross was driving to add to the lead later in the third when Antwon Brown intercepted a Revercomb pass to stop that drive and reverse momentum back into the Caissons’ direction.

Full photo gallery available at www.facebook.com/fishburnemilitaryschool