THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996 TAG: 9611020628
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LEE TOLLIVER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 44 lines
Kempsville coach John Bowles stood grim-faced despite his team's 40-6 domination of Salem Friday night.
Heading into the Division 6 playoffs in two weeks after putting together a strong evening of ball control offense, Bowles could only watch as two of his star players rode off on a golf cart - both injured in the second half of play.
Coupled with Tallwood's 14-7 loss to Princess Anne, the Chiefs earned at least a tie for the Beach District title.
``That's not what you want to see this time of year,'' he said as Zeb Clark (ankle), the leading rusher in the area, and lineman Geoff Stryker (knee) disappeared into the distance.
``But I don't think they're that bad. I hope they are all right.''
The fourth-ranked Chiefs (8-1 overall, 7-1 in the Beach) will need the kind of game they had against Salem to go anywhere in post season.
Kempsville ran off 54 offensive plays to Salem's 42, but finished with a 14-4 advantage in first downs. The Chiefs also had a 288-161 advantage in total yards.
Much of the advantage came courtesy of the area's top running back tandem of Clark and Alex Lleces. Before heading to the sidelines, Clark had 95 yards and touchdown runs of 1, 1 and 4 yards on 27 carries. Lleces bulled his way to 115 yards and scoring runs of 4 and 9 runs on only 12 carries. He also went over the 1,000-yard mark for the season - needing 44 yards - to give his team two 1,000-yard rushers.
``We feel pretty positive about tonight, I think,'' Lleces said. ``We're just trying to keep up the intensity and throw it down everybody's throat.''
Trey Simpkins moved from wide receiver to the backfield late in the second half for the Chiefs to round out the scoring with a 19-yard run. Ryan Quinn hit 4 of 6 extra point kicks.
``We came out real strong and kind of coasted in the second half,'' Bowles said. ``Salem presented us with some problems, but we worked them out. We try to be a ball control offense. Sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. We did all right tonight.''
Salem (3-6, 3-5) scored on field goals of 22 and 42 yards by Kevin Miller - pushing his total to 10 field goals on the season. by CNB