The Clinton Dark Horses (1-0) protected their home turf in their junior varsity football matchup against the Midway Raiders (1-1), winning 34-0 Wednesday evening. The game was originally scheduled for Thursday, but was moved up due to inclement weather conditions.
The first quarter of the game was a defensive slugfest, as neither offense was able to break past the opposition. In the second, it was the Dark Horses that landed the first significant blow. As the Raiders fielded a punt, a big hit forced a fumble that the Dark Horses’ Za’Veon Herring recovered. Gifted closer field possession, Clinton struck first, as Jeremiah Faison scored a goal-line touchdown.
The Raiders struggled to move the ball on their next possession, highlighted by a run by Hunter Batten that resulted in a loss of yards on a critical second down. Forced to punt, Clinton’s La’Dai Raynor fielded the return and managed to gain a huge chunk of yardage. However, offsetting penalties negated the return to just five yards.
Seconds later, the Dark Horses would add a second score.
On his next carry, Faison broke loose, as he gathered speed up the field for a long rush over 30 yards for his second touchdown on the evening. The score sat 13-0 right at halftime, as the Raiders received the ball at the start of the third.
But the Dark Horse defense was still too much for the Raiders’ attack, as Midway was forced to punt once again. On the next possession for Clinton, freshman Jayden Owens received the ball and broke out for a long touchdown of his own. However, following a block-in-the-back penalty called on Raynor, the touchdown was negated.
That didn’t stop the Dark Horses’ run game.
A huge conversion on third and long from Clinton’s Juelz Henry kept the drive alive. That was followed by a 10-yard rush from Faison, which set up a huge pass from Henry to Hampton Bass, who went down near the goal line. The short field position set up another goal-line score, this time from Owens to give the Dark Horses a 20-0 lead.
On the kickoff, Midway received a huge gain from Ty Cash, as he ran over a Dark Horse defender on his way to the 50-yard line. Despite this, the offense for Midway stalled out, as the Raiders turned the ball over on downs on fourth down.
Meanwhile, the Dark Horses’ offense picked up where it started, as less than three plays later, Ty’Rell Morrisey broke off a huge return of his own to extend the Clinton lead to 27-0. One last touchdown from Morrisey in the dying seconds of the contest sealed the game at 34-0.
”There were some bright spots, but obviously some things we need to work on Midway head coach Zack Fann said post-game. “That’s JV football for you. We really shot ourselves in the foot in the first half with a few key plays, messed up on a punt return, and just dumb penalties and mistakes that we’ve got to fix and clean up. They’re only freshmen and sophomores; we’ll get to that point. It’s a long season ahead, and we’re looking to get better every day.”
Some of the things that Fann is looking for from his roster are the key fundamentals on both sides of the ball.
“Mainly, we want to make sure on offense and defense, we have it how we want them to be lined up,” he described. “Things like the defensive set alignment, so we’re not having dumb little penalties (offsides, encroachment). We want to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, so when they get to varsity in their junior and senior year, some of the sophomores know what they’re doing, and it’ll be muscle memory at that point.”
Overall, despite the loss, Fann said he was satisfied with the work he’s seen from his squad in practice.
“These JV kids are working hard every day; I’m super proud of them,” Fann emphasized. “We didn’t get the result we wanted today, but it’s a long season ahead.”
As for Clinton, head coach Jojuan Mosley felt there were positives and mishaps in the Dark Horses’ performance.
“I thought my guys played an excellent game,” Mosley explained. “We made a lot of mistakes as far as holding, late hits out of bounds, and a roughing the passer penalty on the quarterback. But overall, I think my guys played a great game. I couldn’t be any prouder of those guys. They worked hard this summer, and everything they worked on, they came out here and showed it. I told them they were going to make mistakes; we just have to learn from them.”
Seeing the rush attack success that Faison, Morrisey and Owens had as a group, Mosley gave credit to their efforts.
“That just makes my job as a coach easier,” he expressed. “It’s nothing that I do; it’s all the kids, their talents and work ethic. As I said earlier, there are some of the little things that we have to clean up, but this is a talented group. I think next year, a lot of them will be playing on varsity. Our varsity future looks bright with this JV group right here.”
The Dark Horses will bunker down on home turf once more against Wallace-Rose Hill Thursday, Sept. 3 at 6:30 p.m., while the Raiders will head on the road to take on county rival Lakewood on the same date and time.