Boyce, "I'm the quarterback, I keep the offense composed"
When the Landstown High School football team went to the locker room trailing the Kellam High Knights 10-0 at halftime in their home opener last month, a loud sound of quiet hovered over the Eagles' fans. Not only had the Landstown faithful witnessed their team get outplayed in the 1st half of that game, but they had seen the team's 32-game winning streak in the Beach District come to a screeching halt the week before in a 20-6 loss to Tallwood (a Tallwood team that went 2-8 in 2005, by the way).
With one loss already in the books and the team seemingly overmatched by the Knights, there only seemed to be one question: is the Landstown dynasty dead?
For the past few seasons, the Eagles have thoroughly dominated not only the Beach District, but the South Hampton Roads region as well. Along with that district winning streak, the team made two state championship appearances and won the state title in 2004.
The loss to Oakton in the 2005 state championship game looked like the beginning of the end for the Eagles though. They lost Head Coach Chris Beatty to Hampton University and former Landstown standouts Percy Harvin and Damon McDaniel are now playing on Saturdays.
Most people figured that 2006 would be a "rebuilding" year for the Eagles. Fortunately for Landstown, quarterback Xavier Boyce has other ideas.
"I was never worried" Boyce, 16, says about the halftime deficit and the sudden skepticism. "We weren't worried about any of that, we just wanted to play."
Never mind the fact that he was only a junior and only starting the second game ever of his varsity career, Boyce stepped up in front of his offense like a seasoned veteran. "I told [the offense] to keep our heads, don't worry about the score," Boyce says, "I'm the quarterback so I have to keep the offense composed."
The team responded, coming out and playing more relaxed and somewhere in the beginning of the third quarter, it was like a light bulb went on over the Landstown bench.
They had spent most of the night in basic power I and two-running back formations but started having some success with running a four wide receiver set and Boyce in the shotgun.
"We just got the intensity up in the second half," Boyce says, "We noticed that they couldn't really stop the four wide receiver set, so we just kept doing it."
They stuck with it for the majority of the second half and behind Boyce's arm and legs (he threw for one touchdown and ran two in himself), the Eagles rallied for 21 unanswered points and a 21-10 victory. Because of his size and athleticism, it has been speculated locally that on another team, Boyce, 16, could have realistically started on a varsity team as freshman two years ago. At 6'4" and 200 lbs., he towers over his teammates in the huddle.
But with all the fire power that Landstown has had the past couple of seasons, Boyce could only play quarterback for the junior varsity team but did see some action at free safety on the varsity squad last year.
"You get to see both sides of the ball," Boyce says about his time on defense, "And that really helped me out."
Boyce didn't mind waiting for his shot and doesn't seem to care about placing his own name among the Eagles' greats. His entire focus right now is on maintaining Landstown's prominence in the district, in the region, and in the state.
"I know people are looking at us to do it again this year," Boyce says, "But we're just going to do what we do best and if we do that, we're going to have a successful season. I'm just looking for us to win."
