Lions look to continue win streak
Jessieville is off to its best start in seven years as it enters 3A-4 conference play tonight at Don Phillips Field against the Perryville Mustangs.
The Lions (3-0, 0-0) have not entered the conference season with an undefeated record since 2012 when the legendary Phillips led the team to a 7-4 record. They are also the only team in the conference who is undefeated although those wins are meaningless to the rest of the season.
“Well, it feels good to be 3-0, but our message to our kids all week has been, stay focused on the next one,” head coach T.J. Burk said. “The next game is always the most important. You got to win this one before we can move on to the next one, and the last ones don’t really mean anything at this point. So while it feels good to be 3-0, we’re still focused on Friday night.”
Last week, the Lions blew through the Dierks Outlaws, 41-13, handing the Howard County team its first loss after it held on for an 18-14 win over Mountain Pine in Week 2.
“Well, I thought we had a good game plan going in, and our kids executed it perfectly,” he said. “I think right now our kids are playing really hard. They feel like they’ve got something to prove, and I thought we just played an overall really good game last week. Started off a little bit sluggish, but after the first three or four minutes of the game, I thought we executed really well.”
Jessieville scored first on a 99-yard pass from
sophomore quarterback Carson Hair to junior Charlie Davis and let the Outlaws score to pull within 7-6. The Lions then put up 34 unanswered points by the halfway point of the third frame before allowing Dierks to set the final late in the final quarter.
“They’re pretty good offensively at what they do,” Burk said, noting that the Lions needed a little time to get the defense moving. “They come off the ball, and they are going to try to run it right at you and get their three or four yards of play. And it’s up to you to have somebody make a stop and make plays defensively. I think after the first two possessions, we kind of settled down a little bit and we started reading the right keys and made plays when we had to.”
Hair was 7-for-12 passing for 255 yards and three scores and led the team on the ground as well with 10 carries for 113 yards.
“He’s a dual-threat guy, and we have freed him up this year to make more plays,” Burk explained. “Last year, as a freshman, we tried not to let the game be too big for him, but with the progress that he’s made, we feel like we can let him loose and just let him do what he does and play football. He’s making the right reads, and when he needs to pull it down and run it, he’s a threat. It’s just another guy that they have to account for defensively.”
This week, the Lions play host to a 2-1 Mustangs team that uses both ground and aerial attacks out of the Spread.
“They’re a spread [team],” Burk said, pointing out that senior quarterback Reid Standridge is a dual-threat player as well. “They’ll run some option out of it. They like to throw it, and then they like to run it with him. So it’s kind of you’ve got to stop everything with them. There’s not one thing that you can key on, so we’ve got to be ready for a little bit of everything.”
Standridge is 31-for-74 passing for 508 yards in the first three contests of the year, and he has gained 329 yards on 65 rushes. Last year, he finished with a 46.3% completion average for 1,076 yards, but he only had 309 rushing yards last season.
“He can throw it really well, and he’s a good runner,” Burk said. “So he’s a guy that you have to account for, and every play, you’ve got to be ready for him to pull it down and run, too. But we know that going in; he was their quarterback last year, and we feel pretty good about the game plan going in. But we’ve got to be able to tackle him in open space and then have tight coverage.”
In addition to this being the first conference game for the Lions, it is also their homecoming game, which always brings added distractions, but Burk anticipates that the team will look past them.
“It’s always something that we talk about, and we’ve talked about it all week not to let the homecoming stuff get to us and don’t let it be a distraction,” he said. “The real focus is on winning a football game tomorrow night and being 1-0 in conference by the end of the night. So we’ve talked about don’t get caught up in the festivities and keep our focus right and just come play football.”
Two Lions are game-day decisions after getting “banged up” last week against Dierks — senior receiver and linebacker B.J. Holloway and senior linebacker Dexton Hilton. Holloway leads the defense with 17 solo tackles (24 total), while Hilton is fourth with 11 solo stops and 16 total.
“We’ve been trying to get them in treatment all week and get them healthy, so we’re hopefully going to have them available tomorrow,” Burk said. “They’re both going to be gametime decisions. So we’ll kind of judge that tomorrow in pregame warm ups and see how it goes.”
Kickoff at Don Phillips Field is set for 7 p.m.