It’s been a different way of doing things for the Greyhounds this season in terms of individuals playing on both sides of the ball and how they rotate into play.
In the midst of that change, Jones County is 2-0 after Friday’s 48-19 win against Woodland in the region opener.
“We’re proud of our guys, big-time. We played 25 guys in the first half. We didn’t start subbing twos in until the fourth quarter,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Chastain said. “In the first half alone, we played 25 guys. Overall, we played 60 or 70 players.”
The Greyhounds will attempt their first 3-0 start since 2019 Friday when they host Hampton, which lost 31-21 Friday to last year’s AAAA runner-up Stockbridge.
“They have a ton of athletes, and anytime to go against a team like that, you have to be prepared,” Chastain said. “We’ll have to be ready to go.”
The Greyhounds were certainly ready to go Friday against Woodland. Their first five offensive plays resulted in a pair of touchdowns less than nine minutes into the game, up 13-0 first on a 30-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Devin Edmonds to Jaivon Solomon and then hit paydirt again when Edmonds found a wide-open KJ Johnson from 60 yards away. Solomon had 121 receiving yards with Johnson having 51.
Offense was hardly a problem Friday for JCHS, which had 503 yards with pass completions to eight different receivers.
The athletic Wolfpack got itself on track, cutting into the early lead in the second quarter to trail 13-6 with 9:52 to go in the half. That’s when one of the Greyhounds’ two-way players stepped up in a big way. Linebacker Zacarri Thomas had just six carries Friday at running back, but four were touchdowns as he rushed for 113 yards. The first of those scores came in the second on a direct snap, and he scored for two yards away to give JCHS a 20-6 lead that would stand until halftime.
“We’re just trying to come out here and get a win,” Thomas said. “Every Friday night, we just want to come out here, play with grit and earn our spot.”
With playmakers that could create challenges when in open space, Woodland posed a threat in the second half that Jones County needed an offensive rally against. One of those answers was set up by the Greyhounds defense after Corey Williams came up with a fumble early in the third quarter.
Edmonds, who was 16-of-21 for 266 yards Friday, went right to work, connecting with Cason Taylor for a catch followed by a physical run to pick up additional yardage. That set up Thomas for a 14-yard run and 27-6 JCHS lead. Two big plays from both sides followed. Woodland ran back the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown. So, what did the Hounds do? Hit back with a big touchdown of their own as on the first offensive play after the kick return. Thomas rumbled 80 yards for the offensive answer and 34-13 lead with 7:06 left in the third.
“When the game is on the line, we’ll have our best guys on the field,” Chastain said. “It allows us to coach our guys extremely hard, so we are spending more time coaching younger guys than ever have and it shows.”
Both teams exchanged touchdowns to end the fourth with Thomas scoring from five yards away, putting JCHS up 41-19.
Kaden Canty added the final score of the night, going in from two yards away as the backups rotated in.
“We’re playing a lot of people, and the format we are using to play a lot of people on Friday nights has been really good. I can’t say enough about how our kids have responded to a new way of doing things, how we practice and playing people both ways. It’s been really awesome.”
