{"id":611,"date":"2026-08-30T10:01:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/?p=611"},"modified":"2026-08-30T10:01:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:01:02","slug":"apprentice-opens-2026-campaign-with-27-14-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/2026\/08\/30\/apprentice-opens-2026-campaign-with-27-14-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Apprentice Opens 2026 Campaign with 27-14 Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>NEWPORT NEWS, Va<\/strong>. \u2014 The Apprentice School Builders started their 2026 campaign with a 27-14 victory over visiting Sussex County Community College Saturday afternoon at the Apprentice Athletic complex, behind three rushing touchdowns and a defense that came up with four takeaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Quarterback Brock Hoffman set the tone early, capping a 7-play, 53-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to make it 6-0 in the first quarter. The Builders struck again quickly to open the second, needing just two plays to cover 15 yards after a Jabari Anderson interception set them up at the Sussex 15. Malachi Mitchell punched it in from 2 yards out to push the lead to 12-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sussex County answered before halftime, riding a 10-play, 92-yard march that was capped off by a 22-yard Connor Hawkins touchdown catch from Kareem Moore to cut it to 12-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apprentice answered every punch from Sussex County. Bradley Hebb bulled in from a yard out early in the third quarter to make it 20-7, and Hoffman found Malachi Madden for a 14-yard touchdown strike later in the frame to push their lead to 27-7. Hebb led all rushers with 43 yards on 14 carries, while Mitchell added 39 yards and a score of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sussex County&#8217;s Hawkins hauled in his second touchdown of the day, an 11-yard grab, with 1:50 left in the fourth to make it a two-score game, but the Builders&#8217; defense, paced by Leslie Hines&#8217; 12 tackles and Emmanuel Patterson&#8217;s forced fumble and seven tackles, closed the door from there, running out the final possession to seal the victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apprentice leaned on a stout ground game with 132 yards and 3 touchdown, and a plus-2 turnover margin to pull away. The Builders also converted all four of their red-zone chances into touchdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Story courtesy Jacob Mullins\/Apprentice Athletics; photo courtesy DeMetri Washington @pixxbydk<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEWPORT NEWS, Va. \u2014 The Apprentice School Builders started their 2026 campaign with a 27-14 victory over visiting Sussex County Community College Saturday afternoon at the Apprentice Athletic complex, behind three rushing touchdowns and a defense that came up with four takeaways. Quarterback Brock Hoffman set the tone early, capping a 7-play, 53-yard drive with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apprentice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsouthconference.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}