Football: Atlantic Shores hitting the road

CHESAPEAKE

The Atlantic Shores Christian School football team’s most eye-popping numbers won’t come from a stat sheet or scoreboard.

They come from clicks of an odometer: 1,800 miles.

The Seahawks’ trip today to play at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pa., starts a stretch of five road games that will put them on the road for about 34 hours round-trip.

The reason: the Seahawks say they had trouble finding private-school teams in South Hampton Roads to play because of their success. Atlantic Shores finished 10-2 and won the Virginia Independent Schools Division II state championship last year.

Most private-school teams in South Hampton Roads travel no farther than Richmond. The Seahawks’ trip to Pennsylvania will be about 270 miles one way.

Winning “is a double-edge sword,” Atlantic Shores coach Wayne Lance said. “When you’re losing, everyone wants to play you. But when you’re winning, they don’t.”

The Seahawks have been in this situation before. After they won back-to-back state titles in 2001 and 2002, many teams dropped them from the schedule.

This season, five schools – Nansemond-Suffolk, Portsmouth Christian, Potomac School, Trinity Episcopal and Hargrave Military – decided not to play Atlantic Shores. The Seahawks defeated those teams by an average of 35 points last season.

Portsmouth Christian second-year coach Josh Blalock said he has heard various reasons why schools opted not to play the Seahawks.

“I know a lot of teams don’t want to play them not just because they think they recruit – although that has a lot to do with it – but also because when they play them, they run up the score on them,” said Blalock, whose team lost to Atlantic Shores 55-14 last season. “As a coach, I don’t care if I get beat, but don’t embarrass me. And they did that to a lot of schools and it just left a bad taste in their mouths.

“Our reasoning (not to play them) was it was a one-year deal to see how it worked out. And it didn’t work out for us. They just murdered us. There was no point.”

For most sports, Atlantic Shores is part of the Metro Conference, but it’s an independent in football.

“Each year when I’m putting together the schedule, I always have to think, 'Did we beat them too bad?’ ” said Mike Tribus, the Atlantic Shores athletic director. “So my first goal every season is to get 10 games, but I have no idea who we’re going to play because I don’t know who is going to drop us. There are plenty of schools to play, but for whatever reason they don’t want to play us.”

Lance has heard some of the reasons, and he says they’re untrue.

“Everyone wants to take shots at us and say things like we give money to players,” he said. “We get accused of recruiting all the time, but I can’t be concerned with what people say about us.

“A lot of teams also complain about the type of athletes we have. They tell us, 'We’re just not like you guys.’ It’s just the nature of the beast.”

Lance and the Seahawks just want to play games. After learning that five schools dropped them – Lance says they gave various excuses – he frantically scrambled to fill the schedule. He made numerous calls and searched the Internet to contact schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey and Delaware.

The schedule wasn’t finalized until Aug. 24 – five days before the season opener.

Atlantic Shores’ schedule this season includes only one team from South Hampton Roads. That finishes the regular season Nov. 7 – at Norfolk Christian. Along with Atlantic Shores’ budget, parents and players are helping to defray costs for the trips.

But scheduling was only half of Lance’s battle.

“If you think scheduling and traveling is tough, you should try scouting them,” Lance said of his opponents. “We trade tapes with the teams, but I like for our coaches to see the teams that we’ll be playing.”

The Seahawks are 2-2 this season. Liberty Christian, which beat Atlantic Shores 55-0, has won four private school state titles, including a Division III title last season. And Manteo (N.C.), which beat Atlantic Shores 63-48, is undefeated this season and ranked 10th in North Carolina.

But Atlantic Shores’ players say they are better for playing both teams.

“Some of the teams around here and around the state are playing cupcake schedules to make the playoffs but we’re playing some tough teams,” senior quarterback Caleb Bailey said. “Sure, it’s frustrating because a lot of people won’t play us and we have to take these long trips. But we know if we win out, there’s no way we won’t be the No. 1 team in the state. And I think we can do it.”

Larry Rubama, (757) 446-2273, larry.rubama@pilotonline.com