With a 20-point lead in hand with just over nine minutes left in the third quarter on Friday against Ola, the Greyhounds had built themselves a decentsized cushion.
It turned out to be not quite enough, as the Mustangs put up 21 unanswered points the rest of the way to win 28-27 following the go-ahead score with 49 seconds left. Jones County advanced as far as the Mustangs’ 40-yard line with one second left, where Cason Taylor’s heave on the game’s final play fell incomplete, dropping the Greyhounds’ record to 2-2 overall and 1-2 in region play.
JCHS has now lost three of its past four to Ola with each defeat coming by a combined 11 points. “They were upset. We have a lot of young guys who are playing for us right now. I think they understand that it’s not over until the clock strikes zero.
We talked about as a staff at halftime that complacency is something for fools, and you can’t be foolish in this moment.
We’ve got to come out and not look at that scoreboard,” Montgomery said. “I don’t know if we received that message. I think in the second half, we felt like the game was over, and it wasn’t.”
The Greyhounds will go on the road again Friday against Union Grove, who is winless on the season.
For a little more than a half, Jones County appeared to give the crowd on hand for the regular-season opener plenty to go home happy about. It began early, when Taylor found Drew Williams for a four-yard touchdown pass and a 7-0 lead with 5:56 left in the first quarter. Taylor, who completed 20-of-40 passes for 278 yards, added another touchdown toss in the second quarter with Nate Vaughn taking a pass 39 yards for the score on a night in which he caught 10 passes for 124 yards. The early lead also included a pair of Caleb Waters field goals, one following a touchdown being called back.
While it did not seem so at the time, settling for those field goals would loom large, eventually, even after Travis Miller took the ball in from a yard away in the third quarter for a 27-7 lead set up by a key pass to JR Clark, who also drew a pass interference call on the same drive.
Miller led the Greyhounds on the ground, rushing 11 times for 47 yards with JCHS overall gaining 121 on the ground and 278 through the air.
Held without a point until 4:11 was left in the first half, Ola got on track eventually, getting sustained drives in place.
And with the Greyhounds unable to eat much time off the clock or put points on the board, it would be barely enough time for the Mustangs to come back, trailing 27-14 late in the third quarter on a 13-yard quarterback scramble.
JCHS had a chance to get on the board early in the fourth before turning the ball over on downs inside the opposing 30-yard line.
The Mustangs seized the chance to draw closer, cutting the deficit to 27-21 on a 55-yard screen pass.
It was part of the ebb and flow of the game that Montgomery likened to a recent off-field experience. “I was playing Candy Land with my 5-year-old, and when she started winning, she said, ‘I’m going to win.’ Then, as soon as I started winning, she said, ‘You’re going to win,’” Montgomery said.
“It’s not over until it’s over.
You’ve got to compete until the clock strikes zero, and we had to learn that Friday night.
“At this point, you can’t change the time. You have to make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Jones County had a shot to drive the ball and put the game away after coming up with a fumble, but an intentional grounding followed by a pair of incomplete passes gave the ball back to Ola, which went on to pull ahead for good in the final minute.
“We’re not far off, but it’s a bunch of little things we have to fix,” Montgomery said. “We tell our guys, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’ If you fix all these little things like tucking your shirt in, being early to meetings, and being on time for class, all of those things carry over to details you have to do on Friday nights.”
