Jones, Triad beat Panthers
at JCHS Homecoming
BY AARON OTTIS
SPORTS EDITOR
JERSEYVILLE – It took only one play for speedy J.J. Jones to give Triad an early lead.

Jones took the handoff, found a hole to his left, accelerated past Jersey’s last line of defense and into the open field for the first touchdown of the evening.

It wouldn’t be his last touchdown of the night, either. Jones had only 10 carries, but he amassed 247 yards and three touchdowns to help the Knights beat Jersey 40-7 in a Mississippi Valley Conference match up at Donald W. Snyders Sports Complex.

When Triad needed a big play, they knew who to give the ball.

“He was better than what I thought he was,” Jersey head coach Gary Carter said. “I tried not to like him, but he’d make a run and three or four guys would miss him. We’d finally get him on the ground and he would get up and pat our kid on the back. He wasn’t cocky, he was just a good player.”

Jones stretched the score to 13-0 to close the second half with a 54-yard jaunt. He broke at least 4 tackles along the way. He added another in the third, before Kristian Moon found the end zone twice and Tyler Chapman scored Triad’s sixth TD of the night in the final minute of the game.

“I thought our attitude coming out to start the second half was okay,” Carter said. “The things that show up to me…We had four occasions where we went to a kicking situation and we have kids that didn’t know they were supposed to be in the game. That is when I know that mentally, something is not right. They aren’t in the game. They are thinking about something else, expecially when a kid is on first team offense and we go to punt and he comes off the field. He’s been on the punt team since day one…”

Carter said it is tough to pinpoint only one reason that causes Jersey to lose its mental edge, but he knows that his guys need to show some confidence in their own abilities during tough situations.

“Confidence is huge. I think that when kids aren’t used to winning, they look for a way to lose rather than a way to win,” Carter said. “(Confidence) is something the kids have to have. I think you can teach it a little bit. If you think positive thoughts, it is going to happen to you. If you think negative thoughts, it is going to happen to you. We try to coach as positively as we can to instill this in our guys. I mean, we don’t say ‘Don’t fumble the ball.’ We say ‘Protect the ball.’ It’s the psychology of coaching. We just have to go out and play hard, and believe that the hard work in practice will pay off.”

After attempting only six pass plays in the victory over Civic Memorial the previous week, Jersey went to the air 14 times against Triad. Jersey’s junior quarterback Luke Barthelmess connected eight times for 124 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions.

“He did well. He struggled on a couple plays. One was the intentional grounding, and he had two other opportunities to throw deep and missed his receivers,” Carter said. “But it is pretty obvious when we line up in that formation on third-and-ten what we are going to do. The other teams are going to figure that out, and it means Barthelmess has to be right on the money with that play.”

The Panthers run game was effective in spurts, and Jersey controlled the ball for long stretches. But their inability to find the red zone left the Jersey defense with little room for error. Jersey gained 17 first downs in the game, including nine in the first half, but the Panthers never put the ball inside Triad’s 20-yard line. Jersey’s lone touchdown came on a 29-yard pass from Barthelmess to Chase Travers.

“We came out and moved the ball pretty well in the first quarter. That penalty in the first drive killed us,” Carter said. “Triad does a good job defensively. It’s not fancy, but they come across and get their hands on you. We had guys missing blocks again. That’s what I get frustrated seeing, especially with our system because running backs have to block. We’ve got four running backs if you count the quarterback on some plays. The quarterback is not going to block, but the other guys have to block for each other. It is a team thing. I’ll block for you, if you block for me. The other thing we have to improve is our ball fakes. If we can hold one defender on one side of the ball with a fake, that as good as setting a block.”

Carter also said he felt that some of the longer Jersey runs could have been touchdowns, but were stopped short for various reasons.

“Instead of those fifteen yard runs, those could be touchdowns,” Carter said. “Maybe if we had a guy that runs a 4.5 second 40 we can find more open field and break away, but we don’t. Our guy’s run 5.0, 5.1. That’s not a cut to our kids, but we are just working with what God gave us. That is what we are going to deal with. It makes it even more important to have good ball fakes and good blocks. It is no cut to our kids because they are running hard. We just aren’t blessed with that type of speed.”

The Panthers will travel to Waterloo Friday to face the 2-3 Bulldogs. Waterloo is 0-2 in MVC play, and is coming off a 49-7 loss to Highland.

If the varsity team wins Friday night, it will complete the sweep of Waterloo this season.

The junior varsity Panthers were able to convert in overtime to win 8-0 over Waterloo Monday.

“It was a game that went to overtime that probably should not have gone to overtime,” JV coach Garry Herron said. “We had a lot of opportunities to put the ball in the end zone, but we made some mistakes that hurt us.”

Tyler Slaton scored the winning touchdown on a four-yard carry.

Herron said Jersey’s solid defense carried the team while the offense worked to get it in gear.

“We blitz and put a lot of pressure on them. They fumbled five or six times, and we only recovered one, but it was the one that counted in the end,” Herron said.

Jersey’s freshman started the potential sweep Thursday with a 14-7 win. The Frosh team is now 4-1 on the season.

Garrett Jones had a 15-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and Nik Casper added another TD with his 2-yard run in the second.

Quarterback Brian Gust connected with Luke Brown on the two-point conversion.

“The young Panthers (defense) bent but did not break,” said coach B.J. Symes. “Gust had three interceptions in the contest and Garrett Jones had another. Roger Gettings had a strong defensive game, coming up with big tackles when they were needed the most, including a sack…”