Jefferson pulls away from James Wood

WINCHESTER — The Jefferson (W.Va.) football team just keeps on rolling.

The Cougars scored 20 points in the second quarter, then exploded for 20 unanswered points in the last 13 minutes to pull away and defeat James Wood 40-7 on Friday night at Kelican Stadium.

Jefferson (5-2) had won three straight, outscoring its opponents 123-12, since losing to Musselman (W.Va.) on Sept. 9. On Friday, the Cougars kept their momentum going by handling the Colonels (1-5), who won their first game of the year last week against North Hagerstown (Md.) 22-6.

James Wood coach Ryan Morgan thought his team played well, particularly on defense in the first half, but the Colonels could never get their offense going.

"In the second half it kinda got out of hand a little bit when we started making some mistakes for some reason and we continued to struggle to move the ball," Morgan said.

Jefferson started slow on offense, but that didn't turn out to be an issue because of its strong defense.

"We kept plugging away at it and then we were able to hit our stride," Jefferson coach Craig Hunter said. "Once we hit our stride everything started clicking for us and we were able to take advantage of the things they were doing.

"I don't know that we did anything different, I just think that our defense was able to get off the field and our offense was able to sustain some long drives. The wind kind of hampered us throwing the ball down the field so we had to run the ball and use our short passing game."

Dylan Harich led the way for the Cougars, completing 15 of 23 passes for 305 yards and three touchdowns, and running for another TD. The Cougars rushed for 181 yards.

James Wood had seven drives in the first half. One was a turnover on downs after four plays, three were three-and-outs, and the other three drives ended in punts after the Colonels picked up one first down.

Each of Jefferson's first three drives ended in James Wood territory (the last two started in Colonels' territory) but the Cougars came up empty each time. The first drive ended in a fumble at the Wood 16, the second in a blocked field goal and the third was turned over on downs.

Jefferson cashed in on all three its second-quarter possessions, though.

After recovering a fumble, Jefferson put together a four-play drive and grabbed a 7-0 lead on Harich's 14-yard keeper.

Following a Wood punt, it only took Jefferson three plays to go 76 yards for a 14-0 lead. From the Colonels 41, Harich found wide receiver Spencer Powell cutting across the middle and hit him in stride. Powell did the rest, going into the end zone untouched with 6:57 left in the second quarter.

Running back Tayshaun Roper closed the scoring in the first half by catching a swing pass in the backfield and sprinting up the sideline 55 yards with 3:13 left in the second quarter for a 20-0 halftime lead.

"We have a lot of speed out there so sometimes we can hit a little short pass and they can take it to the house," Hunter said. "A lot of these guys run track for us and it helps us to throw short passes."

Neither offense could get on track to start the second half. The first six drives of the half saw the two teams combine for four punts, an interception and a turnover on downs.

After a short Cougars punt set them up at the Jefferson 36, the Colonels' offense showed some signs of life.

While his first nine carries of the game netted zero yards, Colonels running back Lane Overbaugh changed his night in big way on his 10th carry. Taking the handoff from quarterback Jared Neal, Overbaugh finally found some running room as he busted through the line and was able to break free all the way to the end zone to put the Colonels on the board at 20-7 with 1:50 left in the third quarter.

But Jefferson scored on its next drive and controlled the game from there. Harich started it with a 54-yard TD pass to Caleb Shelton with 55 seconds left in the third quarter. In the fourth, the Cougars added a pair of touchdowns on one-yard runs by Evan Tewell (17 carries, 55 yards) and Roper (nine carries, 64 yards).

Powell had four catches for 81 yards and a score, Shelton two catches for 58 yards and a touchdown and Isaiah Fritts had three catches for 66 yards.

"They have great athletes over there so not to take anything away from them but our guys got out of position and missed some tackles," Morgan said. "We lost contain a couple of times. Our kids know what to do on those plays. We just didn't execute."

James Wood only picked up 110 yards on 36 carries. Overbaugh had 49 yards on 15 attempts and Eli Richards had 54 yards on 18 carries.

"Our kids played hard," Morgan said. "[Jefferson is] a very good tackling team and we weren't able to make them miss any tackles. We had a size advantage up front and we weren't able to take advantage of it and that's on the offensive line and we need to pick it up."

James Wood will travel to Liberty next week. Jefferson is off and hosts Martinsburg (W.Va.) on Oct. 21.