Delaware State News/Marc Clery

GREENWOOD — Woodbridge High hit the field on Friday night like it couldn’t wait for its football season to get started.

On just the third play of the game, sophomore fullback Jamon Kane bolted 63 yards for a touchdown.

By halftime, Woodbridge had already scored 33 points against Dover.

While the Raiders couldn’t keep up that torrid pace in the second half, the fast start was more than enough to carry them to a 33-12 victory over the Senators in the season opener for both teams.

Dover, making its debut under new head coach Rudy Simonetti, settled down after halftime, shutting out Woodbridge, 6-0, over the final two quarters. But the damage had already been done when the Raiders stormed out to their 33-6 lead by intermission.

“We knew we had to get off to a quick start just because of the size factor,” said Woodbridge coach Ed Manlove. “I knew we were going to wind down. I envisioned this happening long before the game ever played out.

“I knew we had to try to get on top of them and just kind of hold them off. ... When we were clicking in the beginning there, I thought we looked pretty good. We looked like a really good football team.”

Considered one of the top contenders for the Division II state title this fall, Woodbridge led 20-0 before the game was even seven minutes old. After Kane’s TD, sophomore quarterback Troy Haynes threw a pair of scoring passes — an 18-yarder to Mike Brewer and a 30-yarder to Blaize Rayford — who had both gotten open behind the Dover secondary.

Then, after the Senators closed to within 20-6 on Jordan Magee’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Dwight Wilson, the Raiders kept scoring in the second quarter.

A three-yard scoring run by Terrique Riddick followed by a 47-yard TD run by Richard Massey gave Woodbridge its comfortable 33-6 cushion at halftime.

Kane carried the ball seven times for 86 yards while Haynes completed 4-of-6 passes for 124 yards.

“Nobody expected us to win,” said Haynes. “We proved a lot of people wrong.”

“They’re a very good football team,” said Simonetti. “They’re as advertised. They’re rightfully so the Division II favorites. They’ve got my vote.

“We’ve just got to learn to start faster. We can’t start sluggish any more. And when we get down in a hole, we’ve got to learn to climb back out of it.”

The Senators had their chances to get back in the game but Woodbridge’s defense came up with some big stops.

Dover did start the second half with a nice drive. A 36-yard run by Magee led to his 28-yard touchdown pass to Wilson with 9:36 left in the third quarter.

Magee, a sophomore, completed 4-of-11 passes for 84 yards but also had a couple throws dropped. Not counting a pair of sacks where he lost 28 yards, Magee also ran for 87 yards on nine carries.

The Senators, though, later had a second-and-goal from the six and didn’t get any points. In the first half, Dover got a 70-yard kickoff return by John Rodel Castro to the Woodbridge 15 but again were turned away.

“We just had kids step up and make plays at crucial times,” said Manlove. “That’s what it’s all about. I was really pleased with our effort. We had a lot of kids playing out of position and stepping in there.”

The Senators, who are on the road at Baltimore Poly next Friday night, know they have a lot of mistakes to fix before then.

“I’m very proud of our kids,” said Simonetti. “We held them scoreless in the second half. We put together some pretty good drives. We’ve just got to learn how to finish. That’s a part of us being very young.

“The good news is the mistakes we made are correctible and we’re going to correct them.”