Fort Hunt took an early-season trip to North Carolina to take on the Raleigh Redhawks and Charlotte Tigers.

With an eye toward taking the Virginia state title, and perhaps get a spot at HS Nationals in the club bracket, Fort Hunt was looking to challenge themselves. They had already played Gregory the Great to a 10-10 tie the week before. This was the opening runout for the Redhawks and Tigers, however.

In the opening match Fort Hunt started slowly.

"We are still learning and working on our system and structure," said Fort Hunt Head Coach Dale Roach. "We had to start slow and work ourselves into shape."

Raleigh ran out to a 21-5 lead. 

Redhawks Head Coach Dave Krosner looked on his team in a similar way to that of Roach. "As you would expect, we feel we have lots to work on. But we are pleased with our start and what we saw out of our players. Fort Hunt is always extremely well coached, big, athletic and physical. We emphasized to our boys that they had to meet that physicality and be extremely committed to the contact area. That had to happen before anything else was our message. And our players responded."

The Redhawks ran out to a 14-0 lead before Fort Hunt got one in. Raleigh answered. 

"But as we expected, Fort Hunt kept coming," added Krosner.

Fort Hunt got a bit more comfortable with their attacking pattern—Roach has been working on involving everyone instead of relying on a small number of key players.

"We saw lots of good stud but Raleigh played hard and played field position well," said Roach. "We are moving our program to where we want to go."

Fort Hunt scored twice and that made it 21-19 with about 10 minutes to go. Both sides has chances to score, but neither could.

"We have a great mix of veterans and younger guys and we are pretty fast and skilled in the backline, so we think if we can improve in many areas from here, we can accomplish much," said Raleigh's Krosner.

Flyhalf Jack Rice was very good for Raleigh, putting his side on the front foot, making all three conversions, and playing strong defense. Center Justin Albouey was very good and scored twice, while Chris Newcomb was effective as his midfield partner. Flanker Jack Netherland was solid on defense and young locks Cleb Carruth and Saton Cullen have a ton of potential. Fullback Brady Onesti, a convert from soccer, scored a try and made a potentially try-saving, open-field tackle.