The Jessieville Lions are rolling into week three of conference play after back-to-back 60-point explosions to start the conference slate.
After an 0-3 start to the year through a difficult non-conference schedule, the Lions now sit 2-3 on the year and undefeated in league play. Jessieville defeated Two Rivers 62-26 on the road Friday night behind a dominant ground attack and five touchdowns from senior quarterback Jacob Graves. This comes one week after opening conference play with a 60-32 win over Conway Christian.
"Anytime you win two back-to-back, especially starting conference, it gives you a lot of confidence," head coach Jonathan Bates said. "As long as we can keep taking it one week at a time and working on us and doing what we do and building on it, it makes you feel really good."
Two Rivers fell to 0-5 on the season and 0-2 to start conference play. The Gators lost 34-7 to Danville last week. Now, Jessieville will host Danville on Friday and Two Rivers will host Conway Christian.
Danville is 4-1 on the season with wins in non-conference over Cossatot River and Murfreesboro and wins over the same two teams as Jessieville in conference play. Danville's lone loss came from Hector, 24-19.
"We've just got to continue to get better week after week," Bates said. "If we do that, we'll be in a good spot at the end of the year."
Bates said the key to them dominating on Friday was controlling the line of scrimmage. He felt like the guys up front did that on both offense and defense. He added that when you control the line on both sides then you're always going to be in a good position to win a football game.
The Lions dominated on the ground, running for 423 yards as a team. Senior quarterback Jacob Graves only threw the ball five times in the game, completing four for 49 yards. Back-up quarterback Jaxon Sibley went two-for-two in the second half as well, gaining 33 yards through the air.
Bates said that anytime you score 60 points from primarily running the ball, the offensive line deserves some praise. He said Ryan Kassem, Wriley Wilson, Ethan Meredith, Dillon Stinson and Caden Lennier were very instrumental in what the Lions did on Friday.
Behind that o-line, Graves led the way on the ground, rushing for 205 yards and five touchdowns on 18 attempts. Senior Gunner Ellison was behind him with 68 yards and a score on seven carries and senior Tristan Reid had 66 yards and two touchdowns on just four carries. Senior Gary Walls added 52 yards on four carries as well. Ellison had the longest run of the night at 47 yards and both Graves and Reid had runs of 40 yards as well.
The Lions put their foot on the gas early, scoring on their second play of offense and then scoring a few plays later after intercepting the ball back to go up by two touchdowns just minutes into the game.
On the next drive, Jessieville had Two Rivers behind the chains on a third-and-long and had an opportunity to break up or intercept a deep pass but the Gators receiver came down with it. The Gators scored on the drive but the Lions answered with their third touchdown in half a quarter right after.
To end the first quarter, the Lions stopped the Gators on fourth down and went down the field and added another touchdown to make it 30-8.
Jessieville went on to put another 30 points on the board in the second quarter and took a 60-20 lead into halftime with the mercy-rule in effect. Bates said that the subs played the second half and the running clock wound down quickly.
On defense, Bates said they were in position on three of the four touchdowns that Two Rivers scored. On the other one, the defense put their attention on another receiver and let the other one get open deep. The receiver was able to catch the pass and jogged into the end zone. Other than that play, he felt like his team was in position to make a play but the Two Rivers players ended up making the play instead.
The defense also grabbed three interceptions. Reid caught two passes from the opposing quarterback. Sophomore Oliver Albert got one interception and two pass deflections. Sophomore Peyton Murphy also broke up two pass plays.
Sibley got the only Lions sack of the night. Also, Walls, junior Jude White, sophomore Colby Reed and junior Kyan Deen all got a tackle-for-loss each. Walls and Albert led the team with six tackles on the night as well.
"On the offensive side of the football, we executed at a high level," Bates said. "Defensively, we executed the game plan. They just made the play on us whenever we didn't make the play even though we were in position to make the play on three of the four touchdowns they scored.
"So tip of the cap to those guys for doing what they did and making the play over us. Overall, you control the line of scrimmage the way we did, you feel really, really good about it. I feel good about both sides of the football."
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