GREYHOUND FOOTBALL
By design, the Greyhounds grueling non-region schedule of teams that were in their classification’s top eight teams a season is built to challenge them prior to getting into region play.
Jones County got that and then some from Perry in Friday’s home opener at Greyhound Field. The Panthers – a AAAA quarterfinal team from last season that a game earlier put up 56 points in a loss to Houston County – took advantage of early breaks and miscues by the Greyhounds to win 42-14. The defeat came despite Jones County outgaining Perry 350-287 in total yardage.
It’ll be a road trip again this Friday for Jones County’s final non-region game as it’ll travel to Peach County. The game, set for an 8 p.m. start, will pit the Greyhounds against a Trojans team that is 1-1, coming off an off week following a 35-7 loss to Northside in a game that was a one-score contest in the third quarter before the Eagles put affairs out of reach. This Friday’s game will be the first of the 19 all-time between the two teams in which both will enter the game in their classifications’ top-ten rankings.
“If you sit there and look at score and think that we’ll go down wear them out because we beat Northside, you’ve got another thing coming,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Chastain said.
The good news for Jones County against Perry is that it prevented the Panthers from sustaining drives more than half the field. The bad? Saddled by having a short field to defend against, the Greyhounds were unable to keep the Panthers and their athletic backs and receivers out of the end zone, as they mounted 199 of those 287 total yards through the air. Dakari Anderson alone had 118 receiving yards for the Panthers, who got all but one score on Friday either by turnover or a drive that began in Greyhound territory.
“The bottom line is that they were ready to play and played extremely hard. Some things went their way, and they lined up and whipped us,” Chastain said. “I don’t think our guys were not ready to play; there were some things that we messed up a good bit. They completed their task and completed what they needed to execute and wear us out.”
Jones County’s 2-0 start with wins against Northside and Dacula was marked by early swings of momentum being captured by JCHS. This time, it was Perry doing so, needing only a handful of plays to score on a 29-yard pass to Anderson from quarterback Armar Gordon for a 7-0 lead after fielding a punt around midfield. Then, just prior to the halfway point of the first quarter, Perry went up 14-0 when Gordon came up with a fumble behind the Panthers offensive line, going 15 yards on a busted play to cap off a drive set up by a recovered fumble by Greyhounds Judd Anderson, who thanks to the Panthers defensive pressure, was flushed from the pocket or had to scramble multiple times on Friday.
Despite that, Anderson still had a serviceable night, completing 21-of-34 passes for 257 yards. With the deeper deficit, the Greyhounds did not run the ball quite as much. Even so, Javious Bond rushed for 37 yards, averaging 2.6 yards a carry with Drew Jones having 32.
Already down 14-0 through a quarter, the Greyhounds saw their deficit to go 21-0 when the Panthers’ Anderson took a screen pass 14 yards for a touchdown, coming at the end of a drive on which the Panthers converted a fourth down. The Greyhounds got in gear on offense, but nothing came of it initially. Not only did the first half see a touchdown to Zion Ragins, who had 188 receiving yards Friday, called back, but a fourth down play on the Panthers 34-yard line saw a pass fall incomplete.
“Their effort was better than ours, and have to match that against a good team,” Chastain said. “You can’t make the mistakes that we made Friday against a good team and expect to win.”
JCHS got on the board late in the first half when the Greyhounds turned a fumble recovery into a nine-yard touchdown pass from Anderson to Tyler Stewart in the middle of the back of the end zone and even pulled within a score in the third quarter when Ragins hauled in a 50-yard touchdown from Anderson with 6:08 to play, but the hole was too much for the Greyhounds to climb out of. Once again, a short field played a role. A 16-yard touchdown came after a kick return to the Jones County 33 for a 28-14 Perry lead with the final two scores coming off a blocked punt as well as a fourth-quarter interception throw by backup quarterback Devin Edmonds.
“We talk all the time about how we have to use this game to help us with the next one,” Chastain said. “If we don’t learn anything from the mistakes, we made that they capitalized on, we are not doing our job.”
