J’ville strikes early, often to roll Bismarck on road
BISMARCK — Jessieville found a way to bounce back after last week’s loss to Glen Rose, taking a 57-29 win over Bismarck at Doyle Henderson Field Friday night.
“Well, it’s huge,” said Jessieville head coach T.J. Burk. “It’s hard when you lose the first one, so you’ve got to try to rebound and win the second one. And if you don’t, you put yourself in a really bad spot. So it’s a big win for us to win the second one.”
Bismarck (1-4, 0-2 3A-5) got off to a strong start as sophomore quarterback Ian Smith opened the team’s initial drive
with a 26-yard run. A short pass and another keeper moved the ball down to the 19 before Bismarck fumbled the ball, recovering it at the 6- yard line. Shultz drove down to the 1, but he fumbled the ball with Jessieville (3-2, 1-1) recovering the ball in the end zone for a touchback.
“You know, they were driving on us,” said Burk. “They played a good ballgame, and that stop at the beginning of the game kind of changed the momentum. I mean, even though it’s in the first quarter, it changes the momentum of the game, and who knows if they score first what happens. So that’s a huge play that they can stand on the goalline and get the turnover.”
Bismarck head coach D.J. Keithley agreed that the play changed the momentum of the game, but the turnover was not the only factor. Bismarck starting running back Kalem Rorie was injured on the play as well.
“Number one, it took out our running back, so that hurts you for the rest of the game,” he said. “Luckily our number two back (junior Barrett Schultz) is a pretty good ball player. He’s one that we just got back, but he took a shot later on in the game that kind of took him out. But when you drive it all the way down there to fumble it on the 1-yard line, it’s a little deflating, especially when you let them go off and they score the next series. So it’s hard to get that momentum back once you’ve lost it. If we score that (opening drive), we’re riding high; we’ve got the momentum, so there’s no telling what we’d do.”
Jessieville junior quarterback Carson Hair took control of the game, running 39 yards followed shortly by a 44-yard touchdown sprint for the first score of the night, setting the tone for the rest of the game. Following Tony Muniz’ kick, Jessieville led 7-0 at the 5:54 mark. Minutes later Jessieville scored again when, on fourth down, Hair found Charlie Davis in the end zone for a 20-yard reception.
Bismarck, not about to lay down before its home crowd, executed a six-play, 70-yard touchdown drive led by Smith and capped by a 12-yard snag by Braden Efird. Smith, alone, accounted for 48 of the yards in the drive with runs of 12 and 36 yards. Connor Corley’s kick made it 14-7.
Jessieville pushed out to a 21-7 lead before the end of the first quarter when Hair hit Landen Daley for a 76-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left on the clock. Daley kept Jessieville’s momentum rolling into the second quarter when he picked off Smith’s pass on the second play to set up Jessieville’s next score of the night. After several big gains from running back Matthew Huff, Hair ran it in at the 7:12 mark to spread the lead to 27-7 following a failed 2-point conversion attempt.
Bismarck’s athletic Bo Bates answered for the home team by breaking several tackles for a 47-yard pickup to the Jessieville 15 to set up a Barrett Schultz touchdown. With the first half coming to a close, Hair showed his quickness by juking several defenders and sprinting 55 yards for the touchdown as time ran out to give Jessieville a 35-14 advantage at the break.
“I knew we were going to struggle tackling (Hair), and that’s what got us,” Keithley said. “You know, when you go with a prevent defense and the guy still runs 65 yards on you in the last seconds of the half … He’s a good ball player, no doubt.
“Offensively I thought we did a good job of moving the ball. Score 29 points, and you expect to be in the game. Our defense has got to step up, and we’ve got to do a better job tackling. It’s one of those things that it wasn’t necessarily the scheme was the problem because we had guys there, we’re just not making the plays. It’s something we’ve got to work on. It just goes back to what we said earlier in the week, we’ve just got to work on toughness. Being willing to stick our nose in there and make the play.”
In addition to working on toughness, Keithley said tackling will be a priority heading into the rest of the season.
“To me that’s just the glaring, obvious thing,” said Keithley. “If anybody watched the game they know we had several missed tackles on just about every gain. But that goes back to that whole toughness thing. We’ve got to be more tough on the defensive side of the football.”
Before a scoreless fourth quarter, Smith scored twice for Bismarck in the third while several offsides penalties plagued the team’s chances of a comeback. Hair, Huff and Davis each scored for Jessieville to secure the victory. Davis’ TD came off a 76-yard floater over the middle by Hair in the final minute of play.
Hair was 6 for 10 passing for 170 yards with
185 rushing yards. Huff ran the ball 21 times for
125 yards while Davis tallied 162 receiving yards and Daley had 88 yards.
For Bismarck, Smith completed 3 of 8 passes for 49 yards along with 153 rushing yards. Bates had 172 yards rushing, and Schultz finished with
64 rushing yards.
Bismarck travels to Glen Rose (3-1, 2-0) next week. The Beavers are coming off a 42-0 rout of Genoa Central. Jessieville travels to Genoa
(3-2, 1-1).