HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL - SEASON

INSIDE: GW plays host to Woodrow Wilson on The Hill tonight; prep football notebook 4B SCORELINE: Call for scores all season at 304- 348-1713

Capital's football team has accomplished a lot of good things the last three years - winning 25 of its 35 starts and earning three straight Class AAA playoff berths.

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One thing the Cougars haven't done during that time, however, is win their opener. The current seniors on the roster have started out 0-1 each of the past three seasons.

"They've never won a game the first week," said Jon Carpenter, Capital's first-year coach. "We've reminded them of that. They don't want it to happen again."

The Cougars get a chance to avenge one of those opening setbacks tonight when they visit Riverside to kick off the regular season at 7:30. The Warriors shocked Capital 34-19 in last year's opener at Laidley Field, ending a five-game losing streak to the Cougars.

Capital fell behind 20-0 at halftime last year, suffered four turnovers in the game and saw all-state running back Keion Wright held to 42 yards on 13 carries.

"Everybody has a reason why that happened," Carpenter said of the loss. "I don't know what it was. We just want to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Riverside busted last year's game open with a pair of big plays - a 66-yard touchdown pass from Seth Shanklin to Marshall recruit Raheem Waiters and a 78-yard kickoff return for a TD by Randy Hunt.

Oddly enough, Capital's speed and big-play capability are the No. 1 concern of Riverside coach Ralph Hensley.

In last week's Mountain State Athletic Conference Gucci Replica Grid-o-rama at Laidley, Capital had a pair of lightning-like strikes in a 21-7 win over the Warriors - quarterback Josh Sharp burst 46 yards for a score and later fired a short pass into the flat that freshman James Richmond took 78 yards for a TD.

"As you saw, their speed is a little bit better than ours," Hensley said. "Probably more than a little bit.

"I think we match up with them in some places. If we can just not lose our confidence if something happens early and fight back and put points on the board. That's why I was a little bit upset last week. I thought maybe we should have scored a couple more times. Maybe I haven't done a good job coaching."

Carpenter, for his part, has vowed to simplify his coaching approach - run "four or five plays," and run them efficiently. That would include getting the ball into the hands of Wright, who ran for 181 yards and two touchdowns in a 37-3 win over Riverside in 2008, as well as his other speed-burners, including Richmond and Sharp.

"I've never coached anybody and seen them do that," Carpenter said of Richmond's shake-and-bake score in last week's scrimmage. "He can get out there and run. Josh Sharp can run like that. Keion can run like that. We have several other kids who can do that. I feel blessed to have those guys. Dick Whitman taught me that. A good football coach has to have people who can put it in the end zone.

"But I think it starts with the offensive line. A lot of teams have speed, but don't get the big runs unless you have a good line of scrimmage."

Capital threw 22 times in last year's game, but Hensley doesn't expect to see the ball in the air that much tonight.

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