By halftime of Jefferson’s matchup with East Jackson Friday, the only thing left up for grabs was the title of Jefferson High School Homecoming Queen.
Scoring on all seven of their first-half possessions, the fourth-ranked Dragons (8-0, 4-0) led the visiting Eagles 49-0 en route to a 63-0 win over East Jackson.
“We just came into the game focused,” said Evan Shirreffs, who improved to 12-3 as Jefferson’s starting quarterback. “We knew we could put it away early and get these younger guys some playing experience in a varsity game.”
Sammy Williams was responsible for four of those first half touchdowns as he romped for 150 yards in just two quarters of play. Jefferson finished with 187 rushing yards on the night, most all of that coming in the first half.
It was a short night for Shirreffs, who played just five offensive series. He finished 8-of-11 for 107 yards, throwing a seven-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Skelton.
Backup quarterback Lane Sorrow entered the game late in the first half and threw a screen pass to Kendrick Robinson, who took it 40 yards for a touchdown to give the Dragons a 42-0 lead.
Colby Wood’s one-yard touchdown with eight seconds left in the second quarter gave the Dragons a 49-0 halftime advantage.
“That was the challenge this week, just to come out focused and play our game and the kids did that,” Jefferson coach Ben Hall said. “We’ll go into an off week and we’re going to focus on just fundamentals and keeping people healthy and getting ready for the last two region games and hopefully a playoff game.”
Jefferson topped the 50-point mark for the third straight week when Alex Mason returned an interception 62 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to put the Dragons up 56-0. John Luchetti capped the evening with a nine-yard touchdown run with just under six minutes left in the game.
The Dragons finished with 354 total yards, while holding the Eagles to just 84.
Jefferson’s thoughts quickly turned to its Oct. 31 showdown with unbeaten Oconee County (7-0). The Dragons enjoy an open date this week before hosting the Warriors.
“We’ve got a couple little injuries that we need to heal up and we need to get ready to go for Oconee and Hart and gain some momentum leading into the playoffs,” Shirreffs said.
At 8-0, the Dragons are off to their best start since 2009.
“I feel like we’re playing well, but we still haven’t reached our potential,” Shirreffs said. “Every game we’ve kind of come out and had a little disappointing drive here and there. But once we start clicking every single drive, we’ll be good for the playoffs.”
Meanwhile, East Jackson (1-7, 0-4), which faces Jackson County this week, still searches for its first region win.
“I can’t tell you how much we respect the job that coach (Gary) Hughes does at East Jackson,” Hall said. “He’s doing the right thing, teaching life lessons. He fought an uphill battle this week. His kids played hard, and I’d like to take my hat off to him.”
NOTES: Blake Wright led the Dragons with seven tackles and a tackle for loss. Other top tacklers were Tradd Porter (six, one TFL), Dontae Willson (five), Ian Callow (five), Zack Boobas (five) and Hunter McCaslin (five) … Gage Lawson was 8-of-8 on PATs … Jefferson intercepted three passes this game. In addition to Mason’s pick six, Colby Wood and Cooper Young had interceptions.
