Cathedral falls to Jackson Prep

Published 1:24 am Saturday, September 3, 2016

Jackson Prep entered Friday’s tilt against Cathedral High School winners in its last 22 contests.

You can now make it 23.

The four-time consecutive state champions jumped out to a 21-0 first-quarter lead and never looked back as it breezed past the Greenwave 42-7.

Email newsletter signup

Jackson Prep (3-0) dominated throughout the entire first half, building a 42-0 advantage through the first two quarters. The Patriots outgained the Greenwave 233 to 62 yards for the game.

CHS was missing two of its stalwarts along the defensive front, Cedric Dunbar and Will Wallace, and the Patriots took advantage, tallying 126 yards rushing.

“We had some key guys out, and we had some new guys playing,” Greenwave coach Chuck Darbonne said. “I thought on their assignments they were fine, but they just didn’t bring intensity, because I think it was new to them and they didn’t know what they were about to see.”

Cathedral (1-2) struggled early on offensively to establish any type of rhythm. The Greenwave went three-and-out on each of their opening six possessions.

“We would lose about 10 yards every possession, which would put us farther behind,” Darbonne said. “We couldn’t punt it out of our own, and a good team is going to capitalize on that.”

While Cathedral was stuck in reverse, Jackson Prep was full speed ahead.

The Patriots began six of their seven first-half possessions inside of Greenwave territory.

“Prep is a good team, and they capitalized on our mistakes,” Darbonne said.

Jake Newsome got Prep on the board early in the first quarter with a 4-yard plunge into the end zone.

Jacob Crawley then gave JP a 14-0 lead after he darted through the center of the CHS defense and scampered 31 yards for a score.

Crawley added a second rushing score at the end of the first quarter when ran in from 3 yards out.

Two second quarter touchdown tosses from Jackson Prep quarterback Chance Lovertich gave the Patriots a 42-0 halftime lead.

CHS scored its only points of the game on its first possession of the second half. Quarterback Connor Mire connected with Craig Bradley on a 6-yard out route. Bradley finished the game with four catches for 46 yards. Mire was sacked five times in the game.

“We challenged them all week not to quit and to play through the whole game,” Darbonne said. “We wanted to make sure we won the second half, and we did that. We were proud about that. The effort, it looked like they wanted to be here, and they wanted to play.”

Cathedral has back-to-back games and will attempt to get back on track next week when it travels to face a familiar face in Brookhaven Academy and former CHS coach Ron Rushing.

“I haven’t seen Ron’s team on film, but I know they’re short on players,” Darbonne said. “But I know he’s going to have them prepared. I’m looking forward to it, I haven’t coached against Ron ever, so it’s going to be a good thing for me.”