The 2022 Virginia High School Football season is in the books. We saw history made in a lot of different ways with five of the six State Champions completing an unblemished journey - 15-0 - on their way to the crown. The other, Class 1 juggernaut Riverheads, capture its seventh consecutive state title, a VHSL record.
Speaking of eye-popping numbers, the Freedom Eagles of Woodbridge under Darryl Overton shattered the state scoring record. Previously, the most points in a season was 819, shared by the 1996 Hampton Crabbers and 2018 Manchester Lancers. Like them, the Eagles won a State Championship as their 2022 outfit handled Madison 48-14 in the Class 6 Final to conclude the campaign with 952 points - an average of 63.5 per contest.
The trophy case is getting mighty full at Highland Springs, where Loren Johnson directed the Springers to their fifth State Championship in eight seasons with a 33-19 triumph over Maury in the Class 5 title game at ODU in Norfolk. It improved Johnson to 6-0 against teams from Tidewater, also known as the '757' area code, in the postseason since 2015.
An absolute masterpiece was turned in by Dinwiddie sophomore running back turned quarterback Harry Dalton, who amassed a whopping 399 total yards with six touchdowns - three passing and three rushing - in a 65-20 rout of previously unbeaten Kettle Run for the Class 4 crown at Liberty University.
Also in Lynchburg at Liberty, Phoebus managed to repeat as State Champs, grabbing the program's ninth title in school history as Jeremy Blunt's Phantoms simply steamrolled opponents and won every one of its 15 games by no less than 21 points. That included a 56-0 shutout of Oscar Smith, which had won the last two Class 6 State Championships, in the regular season finale as well as a 48-7 win over Heritage-Lynchburg in its finale.
While Pittsburgh pledge Jordan Bass dazzled for the Phantoms with 41 total touchdowns - including 30 of the receiving variety on 58 catches for 1530 yards to go with his four pick-sixes on 10 interceptions - there were other distinguished standouts on State Champs. Take Graham junior running back Ty'Drez Clements for example.
Clements racked up 2894 yards rushing and 33 touchdowns through 13 games with 1144 yards and 15 of those scores coming in the playoffs for a G-Men program that won its fifth state title and second since 2018.
Three of those State Champs will be gunning for repeats in different classifications as Riverheads moves up to Class 2, Phoebus to Class 4 and Highland Springs to Class 6 beginning in the 2023-24 cycle.
We take a look at our Final Rankings for the season, plus you can view the playoff brackets for all six classifications below as well as where each team checked in at in our Preseason Top Ten in the charts...
See Final Playoff Brackets Here
Matthew Hatfield serves as Publisher 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.
