THE EAST Hall Vikings used a stout rushing attack to do their plundering Friday, and East Jackson had no answers in a 50-20 loss in Gainesville.
With the setback, the Eagles (0-3) remained winless on the year.
Click here for photos.
“They smashed us in the mouth and we took it,” East Jackson coach Brian Smith said.
After being forced to put on its opening drive, East Hall — moving primarily on the ground — scored on its next eight possessions en route to the one-sided win. East Hall led East Jackson 50-7 at one point in the fourth quarter.
The Vikings — who ran for over 400 yards — got two rushing touchdowns each from Austen Mahaffey and Corey Reece in their second win of the year. Edward Vergara, Dre Brawner and Devin Watson each added one score on the ground. Watson also threw a touchdown pass to Milton Whelchel on a halfback pass.
“We put our defense in bad situations, and our defense couldn’t make a stop and we couldn’t make a first down in the first half,” Smith said. “They rolled on us. That’s how it goes. We played horrible.”
East Jackson quarterback Austin Beauchamp ran for 108 yards on 16 carries and threw for 118 yards and three touchdowns on 5-of-15 passing.
Beauchamp’s third straight 100-yard game on the ground was one of the few bright spots for the Eagles.
“He’s done a good job for us,” Smith said. “We’re going to need him to continue to mature as a quarterback … He’s got a lot of work to do and he knows that. He’s got to improve his individual skills. He’s got to improve his throwing and running everywhere.”
East Jackson’s night got off to an inauspicious start as East Hall converted an onside kick to start the game.
The Vikings eventually had to punt but later scored on a 10-yard touchdown run by Mahaffey to go up 6-0.
East Jackson answered with a 65-yard touchdown drive that saw Beauchamp get most of the work done on the ground. He capped the scoring march with a nine-yard strike to Drashun Upadhyay. An Austin Lumpkin PAT gave East Jackson a brief 7-6 lead.
But East Hall scored a pair of touchdowns to end the first quarter and two more in the second quarter as the game was out of reach by halftime.
“We have got to play better on both sides of the ball," Smith said. "We tackled poorly and just some of the mistakes on offense we made were things that I think can be corrected. And there were things we don’t seem to do in practice which were odd.”
With the game out of hand in the fourth quarter, Beauchamp threw long touchdown passes to Josh Saucier (49 yards) and Casey Reed (56 yards).
East Jackson, for the most part, struggled offensively, however.
“It’s kind of odd,” Smith said. “We’re still dealing with snap issues. We’re still dealing with exchange issues. We’re still dealing with some of those things — making bad decisions. So it’s growing process.”
Winder-Barrow would beat banks by 4 TD's.
and you saw the end results.