By Craig Juer — Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — Most teams this year have rolled safety help toward Andrew Thorne, or double-teamed him, or disguised their coverage against him. In his first four games, however, he accumulated 11 catches for 234 yards, including six touchdowns.

The Millbrook Pioneers took a different approach to Skyline's 6-foot-3, 180-pound receiver.

"Millbrook chose to cover Andrew one-on-one," Hawks coach Heath Gilbert said. "And Andrew showed what he can do."

Thorne nearly matched his season output to that point in Skyline's stunning 28-21 upset of the Pioneers. He hauled in nine catches for 229 yards and two touchdowns, including a remarkable 20-yard, second-quarter grab in which his toes stayed stubbornly in bounds while momentum carried the rest of him out of the end zone.

The play wasn't anything unusual for Thorne.

"One time [against Strasburg] Nathaniel White, he was throwing it to Terrell [Matthews], and it tipped off of him and Andrew caught it in the back of the end zone and tip-toed it, and got a touchdown," quarterback Kieren Caison recalled.

Don't expect Handley to use Millbrook's strategy tonight. Judges' coach Tony Rayburn is well aware of the threat Thorne poses.

"We view him as the best receiver we've seen," Rayburn said. "And we've seen some decent teams, obviously, throwing the ball."

Thorne wasn't originally supposed to play for Skyline. He grew up in Manassas, attending Baldwin Elementary and on track to feed into Group AAA's Osbourn High School.

"Around there, I was 'James Thorne's son,'" Thorne said, referring to the former Osbourn and Saint Paul's College running back who raised him.

But the unsavory neighborhood Thorne grew up in was an unwelcoming place for a family. Without elaborating much, Thorne indicated that his childhood there was fraught with danger.

"I was in a real bad area," he said. "I was always out by myself — well, not by myself, but with my little brother, my friends and things.

"The area we were at, things could have got bad. Things that were going around and happening."

So when Thorne was 11, his family moved an hour west to Front Royal. Though he appreciates the impetus behind the move now, at the time he resisted.

"I guess at that age, your mindset is going to be, you want to be with your friends," he said. "Once I moved up here I was like, man, I don't like being up here, I don't like nobody."

When he enrolled in Warren County Middle School, Thorne glumly cast football aside, keeping to himself and bemoaning his misfortune to live away from his friends, his old neighborhood and the bustle of the urban sprawl.

But by the time seventh grade rolled around, he realized he was wasting his time.

"I didn't have anything to do, I didn't have friends or anything like that," he explained. "So I kind of figured I might as well play sports to deal with it. I'm up here now; I'm not going back."

He picked up basketball, which eventually became a passion of his despite his relative unfamiliarity to it. In ninth grade, he returned to football, on the freshman team at Warren County High School.

"It runs in my family," he said of his reasoning at the time. "I've got to play."

After toiling for three years as a wide receiver — a seldom-used instrument in Gilbert's previous offensive game plans — Thorne's position has finally become a bit glamorous. He was the team's best receiver last year (in the first season of Skyline football) with 21 catches for 320 yards and two touchdowns, and has obliterated those numbers with 20 catches for 463 yards and eight touchdowns through the first five games of this season.

"We were pretty much based on running instead of mixing it around like we are this year," Thorne said. "I made a few catches, but it wasn't like I am now."

In the second year of what can best be described as a "spread pistol wing" offense, the Hawks are accomplishing what they originally set out to.

"We just weren't able to get the ball out there to him like we were able to this year," Gilbert said. "And it wasn't just the quarterback. The protection wasn't as good last year. The way we can keep people off balance a little more, we're a little more dangerous with our athletes out there. That's helped."

After helping Thorne ingratiate himself with his classmates and give him something to be a part of outside his original comfort zone, football might do something else for him, too: take him to college.

Thorne said Shepherd has contacted him about playing for it next year, but Gilbert said he's been in touch with D-IAA programs like William and Mary, James Madison and Old Dominion. Not only does Thorne have superior size, soft hands and tremendous leaping ability (he's a renowned dunker during basketball season, another sport luring college interest his way), but he's got 4.6-second speed in the 40-yard dash.

"He's a 'two-stepper,'" Gilbert said. "When you break down film and you're watching your opponents, if they can take two steps for every 5 yards, it's next-level speed."

It's something that Rayburn has seen on film, and has surely affected the game plan he drew up for Skyline's homecoming tonight.

"He's going to make some plays," Rayburn said. "We just hope he doesn't make big plays."

* Contact Craig Juer at cjuer@nvdaily.com