Jones thumps Edgewater in a clash of top-ranked teams
Jones High football coach Elijah Williams said his team’s bestpractice this week took place on Friday, mere hours before the Tigers were to host a matchup of the area’s topranked teams.
Jones (5-0), ranked No. 1 in the Sentinel Super 16, beat a state championshipgame finalist for the second time in three weeks when it came away with five turnovers during a 31-13 win against No. 2 Edgewater (2-2).
“There’s nothing else to say about it this year. Jones High School is the best team in [Orange County],” said Williams. “And now we’re going to go down to Miami and see how we fare against them nextweek.”
Jones plays at defending three-time Class 3A state champion Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna (4-1) on Friday.
The Tigers, Class 5A state runners-up in 2019, defeated 8A state finalist Apopka 22-21 on Oct. 9. Edgewater reached last year’s 7A state title game.
Jones’ stout effort Friday came one week after the Tigers escaped with a mistake-prone 42-41 overtime win against Wekiva. That outing led to an overhaul in the team’s defensive scheme early in the week.
“We just made sure [the team] had cleaned up on everything,” Williams said of Friday’s additional practice session. “And the guys came out here and performed. The defense played lights-out.”
Jonathan Aleem Jr. intercepted an Edgewater pass on the first play of the second half to set up a short field goal by Jeffrey St. Louis.
Aleem then recovered a fumble on a bad snap four plays later, but the Tigers were quickly forced to punt. Edgewater muffed the return and Stephen Sparrow rushed up the middle for a 2-yard touchdown to give Jones a 24-7 advantage with just under six minutes to go in the third quarter.
“Usually when we have a lead, we come out in the third quarter a little lax, feeling like the game is already over, but that’s a team that’s going to compete [until] the fourth quarter,” said Aleem. “We just had to keep it going.”
Each team opened the game with deep drives that eventually flamed out.
The Tigers turned the ball over on downs when Thomas Anderson pushed through the offensive line and wrapped up senior quarterback Tysan Robbins.
The Eagles went on to rattle off 11 plays before missing on a 28-yard field goal try
Jones promptly reached the end zone the very next play when Robbins launched a deep pass down the home sideline to A’Ceon Cobb for an 80-yard score with nearly two minutes left in the opening quarter.
Edgewater responded by returning to the red zone, aided by completions from Canaan Mobley to Jeremiah Connelly and Tommi Hill. But Jones senior Del montre Pryor halted the threat when he intercepted a pass near the 15-yard line and took it back for a touchdown with 18.9 seconds left in the period.
“We all love to compete, and we feel like everybody has been sleeping on us, so we just had to come out and do what we do to wake them up,” said Cobb.
The game was temporarily halted late in the fourth quarter as tempers flared in whatwas a tensely played contest. Edgewater teammates had to be separated by coaches on its sideline and game officials stepped in to break up the teams following a play that ended in front of the Jones sideline.
The Eagles defeated Jones 28-14 on its home field last September in the first meeting between the schools since 2016.
Edgewater got within 14-7 Friday with nearly two minutes to play in the first half. That’s when Mobley scored on a short run after a bad snap on a punt attempt put the Eagles at Jones’ 17-yard line.
Mobley hooked up with Christian Leary for the game’s final touchdown midway through the fourth quarter after Robbins dumped a short pass to Jabari Smith to extend the Tigers’ lead to 31-7.