JEFFERSON stat keepers may be checking the rushing record books after Friday night.
Dragon quarterback Bryant Shirreffs ran wild for a career-high 248 yards and three touchdowns as Jefferson (11-1) overcame an early 7-0 deficit with 35 unanswered points to trounce visiting Westminster 35-7 in the second round of the Class AA playoffs.
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“I put some new spikes in my cleats, so I guess that helped,” Shirreffs said light-heartedly in reference to his big night.
Shirreffs also threw a touchdown pass to Dalton Hill, and Sammy Williams added a rushing touchdown as the Dragons (11-1) tied a school record with their 11th-consecutive win.
“I was hoping we could win, but I certainly didn’t think we would win 35-7,” Jefferson coach T. McFerrin said.
Jefferson, a no. 1 seed, will move on to the state quarterfinals for the first time since 1977, matching up with no. 2 seed Fitzgerald next Friday at home.
“They really wanted to win this football game,” McFerrin said. “They showed a lot of character. I think they’ve been told so many times that we hadn’t been to the third round since 1977 or something like that. They wanted to get there.”
Not to be overshadowed by Shirreffs’ night was the effort of the Dragon defense, which shut out the Wildcats over the final 46:02 of the game and held Westminster to 165 total yards.
Wesley Simonton led Jefferson with eight tackles and two tackles for loss. Kody McDonald had eight stops and one tackle for loss.
“It just took us getting in, getting into our groove,” said McDonald, a senior linebacker. “Once we settled in … I mean, we’ve been counted out all year and been down but we’ve just been able to bounce back all season long.”
With the Dragon defense holding Westminster in check, Jefferson took over.
Shirreffs’ prolific night included scoring runs of one, 56 and 33 yards as he pushed his total to 14 touchdowns on the year.
His longest run, however, was a 72-yard second quarter jaunt down to the Westminster three.
“Unbelievable. Just unbelievable,” McFerrin said of Shirreffs’ night. “I didn’t know he could run that fast. I guess he runs fast when they’re chasing him maybe.”
Jefferson installed a quarterback sweep play on Wednesday and used it quite effectively Friday. McFerrin explained the technicalities behind it.
“We saw on film that sometimes they move the outside linebacker on trips all the way over, so we just said, ‘well let’s have just have that in case they over-shift like that, let’s just run a sweep.’”
Making Shirreffs’ 248-yard total all the more remarkable was that he didn’t play for the last 7:06 due to the lopsided score.
Shirreffs, an accomplished passer, has now topped the 1,000-yard rushing mark with 1,018 yards on the year.
Others besides Shirreffs got in on the action.
Williams finished with 82 yards on the ground and one touchdown, and the offensive line helped pave the way to a 400-yard rushing night.
Jefferson threw sparingly, but Isaiah Blake led the Dragons with 41 yards receiving. Hill caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from Shirreffs for the Dragons’ lone score through the air on the night.
The highlights even included a 22-yard run by kicker Chandler Schlutow — who finished 5-of-5 on PATs — on a third-quarter fake punt.
All this came after a rather inauspicious start for the Dragons.
Jefferson fumbled the ball away on its own 22 on the first play, which set up a three-yard touchdown run from Cameron Seward just 1:58 into the game.
McDonald agreed that the early score was a wake-up call.
“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “After that, we got to the sidelines, me and Wesley (Simonton) got everybody up. The coaches yelled at us a little bit, and we just got right back into it.”
Shirreffs also said that Westminster’s early score got the team’s attention.
“Honestly I got a little bit nervous,” he said. “But I knew we were going to score. That was unfortunate, but we overcame it … I think it was good for us being down, because we’re not down much as of late.”
Jefferson quickly erased any doubt with three consecutive scoring drives in the first half to give the Dragons a 21-7 lead. From there, Jefferson never looked back.
The victory gave the Dragons their third 11-win season in the last five years and secured at least one more home game.
Jefferson players wanted to make sure they reveled in this win — at least for Friday.
“It feels really good,” Shirreffs said. “I’m going to go to McDonalds and get a quarter-pounder with cheese and enjoy the night.”
