Crabbers Exact Revenge on Greyhounds: Saturday afternoon's tilt between the Hampton Crabbers and Norcom Greyhounds at Darling Stadium marked a re-match of last year's Eastern Region Division 5 semifinals. Just 10 months earlier, Norcom beat Hampton to reach the regional title game. This time, it was Hampton coming out on top, scoring 21 points before half-time and prevailing 28-13 to improve their record to 2-0 overall.

Coming into the game, Hampton's players weren't allowed to forget about what happened the last time the two teams met either.

"Coach has been stressing that all week," noted Hampton senior and Virginia Tech commit Deon Newsome, whose father Myron is a Crabbers assistant and former Hokie and Hampton standout. "They're pretty good and have some talented athletes on their team. We've got like a row of hard games coming up, so it won't get any easier from here."

The versatile Newsome made it look easy at times against the Greyhounds, having a hand in four touchdowns and accumulating 205 yards of offense, either throwing or running the football from the quarterback position. His three rushing touchdowns along with a two-point conversion allowed Hampton to build a 28-6 lead less than three minutes into the third quarter.

"It's coming more and more for me every game," replied Newsome when asked how he's adjusting to playing QB. "We've been able to go down the field, and then we turned back around the other way a couple times and I didn't like that. I've just got to work on my wind because I've been getting a little tired. The heat and these black jerseys we've got on made it even tougher. It was just a little hot out here."

Hampton has room for improvement, but they look to be going in the right direction.

"I thought we played pretty well for the heat. We were trying to wear them down. I don't know if we wore them down or they wore us down," said Hampton Head Football Coach Mike Smith.

"We've got some inexperienced guys, they've got to pick it up and I've got to pick it up. We played great defense for a while and then we got a little lackadaisical. I think we got up and lost a little bit of our intensity there. They're young and they'll learn. I'm old and I'll make it I hope. They're young, I'm old and I don't know which one's going first, me or them."

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Stats:

Hampton 28:
Deon Newsome - - 5-9 for 98Yds. 1-1TD/Int. ratio; 16Car. 107Yds. 3TD's
Demetrius Strickland - - 9Car. 46Yds.
Trievon Powell - - 8Car. 46Yds.
Marshawn Williams - - 7Car. 34Yds. (all 1st Half); 1Rec. 24Yds.
Umar Muhammad-Wyatt - - 2Rec. 52Yds. TD
Daquin Moore - - 1Rec. 13Yds; 8 Tackles
Trey Pressley - - 6 Tackles, TFL
Daunte Wilson - - 4 Tackles, TFL, 2INT's

Norcom 13:
Darron Downing - - 11-21 for 103Yds. 0-2TD/Int. ratio; 14Car. 46Yds. 2TD's
Traquan Martin - - 12Car. 40Yds; 1Rec. 6Yds.
Aaron Parker - - 4Car. 35Yds.
Kevin Jones - - 5Rec. 32Yds; 2 Tackles
Chris Ortega - - 3Rec. 43Yds.
Fred Harris - - 11 Tackles, 4TFL, Sack
Jametrius Harris - - 6 Tackles

Matthew Hatfield has covered Eastern Region Football & Basketball since 2004 for VirginiaPreps.com, part of the Rivals.com Network. Check out Hatfield's Twitter page for more sports related updates, and you can also read his work in the Suffolk News Herald. To contact Matthew, please e-mail hatfieldsports2k4@yahoo.com, and don't forget to listen to him on the VirginiaPreps.com Hour every Saturday at 11AM on ESPN Radio 94.1 plus watch him on the Cox 11 Sports Report.