Parkers Chapel to host Junction City in final game of the regular season.
On the surface, it would seem that tonight’s 8-2A clash between Union County rivals Junction City and Parkers Chapel doesn’t significantly offer much.
Both teams are already in the playoffs, and their seeding has largely already been determined although not finalized.
However, the Dragons (6-2, 4-0) can clinch the outright 8-2A crown and enter the playoffs on a sixgame winning streak with a win, while the Trojans (2-6, 1-3) are looking to build off of last week’s win at Strong and enter the postseason on a high note.
Game time is set for 6:30 p.m. from Victor Nipper Stadium.
“I don’t think so,” Junction City coach Steven Jones said when asked if the game might be less intense with both teams already in the playoffs. “I think both teams are looking forward to a good contest Thursday night. I think both teams will show up ready to play. I know its Senior Night at Parkers Chapel. It’s their last home game for their
seniors. I think both teams are looking forward to the next few weeks.”
The Dragons and Trojans have staged some epic classics in other sports, but that has not been the case in football. Junction City has won all eight meetings in lopsided fashion with their smallest margin of victory being 29 points, and Parkers Chapel coach Jacob Midyett wants to change that trend.
“I’m not sure you can really call it a rivalry yet,” Midyett said. “Both sides have to win some for it to be a rivalry. We haven’t beat them yet. I don’t know how many times we’ve played them in the history, but we’ve yet to really even compete, so I don’t know if I would call it a rivalry yet.
“We’ve kind of got to get our foot in the door to be able to do that. That’s the goal. We know what we’ve got ahead of us as far as next week. We know they’re coming in wrapped up too, so we’re hoping we can play well and give them a good fight.”
Parkers Chapel quarterback Caleb Jacobs threw four touchdown passes while going 11-of-20 passing for 235 yards in last week’s win at Strong, and Jones said his defense will have to be ready for Jacobs’ ability to make plays when seemingly nothing is there.
“He’s an extremely explosive player,” Jones said of Jacobs, adding that the Dragons haven’t faced a quarterback with his ability to improvise. “He makes a lot of plays after the play has broken down. He’s able to do a lot of things with his feet. He keeps plays and drives alive. He’s an old-school, scramble-type.
“Going way back, he’s almost like a Fran Tarkenton in my opinion. He’s looking to scramble a lot of times, and he’s able to make plays out of the pocket by doing that. He’s done a good job for them this season. He’ll be tough to contain. Our defense will have to do a good job of keeping him in the pocket and not let him get out.”
After starting the season by losing two of their first three games, the Dragons roared back to win the 8-2A, and Midyett credited them for bouncing back from their early struggles.
“They’re very good on both sides of the ball,” Midyett said. “Obviously, they’re the champs of the conference, and they’ve done a good job of taking care of business. A lot of people were worried about them early in the year after a couple of losses, but they’ve done a great job of sticking together and fighting through. They run the ball at you on offense. It’s the same old normal Junction City offense except they spread it out a little more now. Defensively, they’re big up front. They run to the ball well and they will hit you. They’re a fun group to watch.”
Parkers Chapel’s defense has forced several turnovers in each of the last two weeks, including a 60-yard interception return for a touchdown by Amari Bell last week at Strong, and Jones said he is expecting a variety of looks from the Trojans.
“They’ve got a couple of linebackers that run really well and tackle pretty good in space,” Jones said. “They did a good job against Dollarway and in containing Strong. They run a front that we’ve seen a lot of this year, so that could help us, but we expect to see a number of different things from them. They’ll probably send some pressure and things like that and mix up some run blitzes. We’ll have to make sure we’re ready for all that they’ll bring to the table.”
In addition to Bell, who also caught three touchdown passes against Strong, the Trojans got major contributions from a pair of sophomores.
Edison Thompson finished with 15 tackles to lead the team, while Josh Nussey recovered a fumble and registered 11 tackles.
“It was good to see them come in and have some success,” Midyett said of the duo.
The Trojans are also well-versed in preparing on a short week after starting the season with two games in five days, and Midyett said he is making sure that his team is focused on getting themselves ready.
“We played a hard-fought game Friday,” Midyett said. “It was four full quarters, and anytime you come back on short rest, especially late in the year, we’re trying to make sure we’re good to go. Especially with next week is when your season comes to an end if you don’t win, so we’re trying to make sure we get everything going, get some momentum, get some good drives offensively and defensively and put some stuff on film for the next week.”
Jones said the short week can be difficult to adjust to.
“It’s one of those weeks that you can lose focus on,” Jones said. “It’s a Thursday night game. It’s a different schedule throughout the week and practice. With us, we have a schedule that is pretty set in stone for each day, and Wednesday is a day that we cover all three aspects of the game and do a lot of game situations.
“Thursday is usually the day that we want to go out and execute everything perfectly, so we cut out our Wednesday practice this week and move what we would normally do on Thursday to Wednesday. You have to get ready on short notice and have everything ready to roll. You definitely want to use your Week 10 game after you’ve clinched a playoff berth to gain that momentum going into the playoffs.”
Should the situation arise, Jones said he would like to get some of his younger players some playing time.
“We go into every week with the same preparation and have our guys ready to go,” Jones said. “We’ll just let the game dictate that, but that can add some value to our team moving forward in the playoffs.”
The Trojans were able to get some of their younger players on the field in their win at Strong.
“We got to do that a little bit last week,” Midyett said. “We kind of pulled away later in the fourth quarter, and we were able to get some guys in that don’t get a whole lot of reps. We definitely hope that we can do that again this week.”
Junction City’s running game rolled up 353 yards in their win over Hector, and Jones was pleased with his team’s play.
“I was very proud of how our kids came out ready to play,” Jones said. “We came out focused. I thought offensively, we were much sharper than we showed at Fordyce. Other than a few turnovers, we were very efficient offensively. We were able to move the ball and finish drives. It was a group effort. Dhante (Gibson) had a big game for us. He did a good job of running the ball hard. We were able to get it going offensively, and everything fell together. The defense stood tall all night long. We had one break, but other than that, I thought we did a great job in all three phases of the game.”
Behind Jacobs, the Trojans stormed out to a 29-0 lead at halftime en route to winning at Strong, and Midyett was happy to see his team get out of the gates quickly.
“We really started good and fast,” Midyett said. “That’s what we’ve been preaching all year. When we get off to a good start, we get some momentum. The way that we threw and caught the ball last week, we can do some things that are tough, so it was good to see us finally jump out to that start we’ve been hoping for. We felt like if we had done that a couple of more times, we’d be in a little different spot, but we haven’t, and hopefully this kick-starts us to do that week in and week out.”
If the Dragons are to enter the playoffs with a six-game winning streak, Jones said his team must keep its focus on the Trojans and not look ahead.
“We need to treat Thursday as a business trip,” Jones said. “We’re going over there to take care of business and get ready for the playoffs. We can’t overlook our last opponent of the season. We need to come out sharp and execute from the beginning of the game to the end.”
For the Trojans, Midyett wants to see his offense produce against the Dragons’ defense.
“We need to get some momentum and sustain drives,” Midyett said. “We know what we’re going to see against them defensively. It’s going to be a very good group, probably one of the top in the state. If we can move the ball on them and put some points up, I think we’re going to get some good feelings going into the next week. Defensively, we hope to try to make them drive the ball. We don’t want to give up big plays. We want to make them have long drives.”