Hornets keep momentum heading into postseason

CHESAPEAKE — Deep Creek football thrives on its YAC attack.

With talented wide receivers on the outside like Jalen Jones and Joshua Jack, it’s easy enough for quarterback Tony Barnes to quickly dish it out to either senior and let him rack up the YAC (yards after catch) statistic.

“It’s pretty fast-paced,” Jones said. “It gets the other team off-balance, tired and fatigued. It just works for us, and when we get rolling, we get rolling.”

Jones turned one of those short passes into a 21-yard touchdown as No. 7 Deep Creek beat host Western Branch 23-12 Friday night in a regular-season finale.

The Hornets (5-1) will advance to the Class 5 Region A playoffs.

“We’re in a pretty good place,” Jones said. “We still make mistakes, but we’re gonna correct them and we’re gonna bounce back.”

Jones, a senior, also had an interception against the Bruins (2-4) to cap a successful week in which he also committed to William & Mary.

“I just feel like it’s a great place to be, a great coaching staff, and I’m just ready to go ball,” Jones said.

Deep Creek’s defense was fully prepared in the first half as it forced two turnovers on Western Branch’s first two plays and held the Bruins to 24 yards while carrying a 10-0 lead into halftime.

The Bruins’ offense came alive in the second half as the teams traded scores on four consecutive drives. JaShaun Fraizer scored a pair of rushing touchdowns, but Deep Creek answered after both with a 2-yard rushing TD by Madison Davis and a 70-yard TD dash by Jack.

“We had some mismatches we saw on film we wanted to exploit,” Deep Creek coach Andre Twine said. “So our guys played big-time ball as Jack made that big run to end the game (and) Jalen Jones made some catches.

They made plays for us and they’re senior guys.”

While Deep Creek already was virtually locked into a playoff spot, Twine wanted to make sure the team kept its momentum heading into the postseason.

“We had to come out with the mindset to be physical,” Twine said. “It’s a tough night at Western Branch and we knew this was a playoff game for us. We had some mistakes that we got to tighten up going forward.

“Overall, we got the win. We’ll get out of here, regroup and get ready to go.”