Team

Liberty

Record	Div.	Conf.
7/3	Div. V	All-American Conference Blue Tier

By VINCE PELUSO

Ashtabula Star Beacon

JEFFERSON

On a night where the conditions were less than ideal, it would seem pretty clear that the Jefferson Falcons would be forced to run the ball with Jeremiah Knight if they were going to have success.

While the Liberty Leopards might have known that was Jefferson’s best chance of offensive success, it made no difference as Knight ran wild on the Leopards, finding the end zone four times in a dominating 38-8 victory at Falcon Pride Stadium on Thursday night.

“That was a pretty good one,” Jefferson coach Jimmy Henson said of Knight’s performance. “I thought he ran hard and for the most part I thought he saw the hole pretty well tonight. He’ll tell you, those guys were opening up some holes which makes the running the ball a whole lot easier.”

It wasn’t easy on the Falcon’s first two possessions as they started on the Liberty 38- and 31-yard lines but were forced to punt and turned it over on downs, respectively.

After a bad punt set Jefferson up in the red zone, the holes began to open and Knight scored from 14 yards out to give the Falcons an early 7-0 lead.

It was sign of things to come as the junior rushed for 248 yards on 33 carries.

On the following possession, quarterback Zach Collins found J.J. Henson open in the flat, and he took it 35 yards for a score to put Jefferson ahead 14-0.

Knight said that play as well the offensive’s blocking seemed to loosen up the Liberty defense.

“J.J. had that big play on that bubble sweep and we have really good receivers and they know that probably,” Knight said. “Just with (offensive lineman) Bubba (Braden Hagerdon) being back our offensive line has a lot of experience and they get better each week and the holes were just there.

“The line does it all, I just follow them,” Knight added.

Knight scored his second touchdown of the game on a seven-yard run with 6:49 that gave Jefferson a 20-0 lead it would carry into overtime.

The running back wasted little time finding the end zone after intermission as he scored from five yards out on the Falcons’ first possession of the second half to give Jefferson a 26-0 lead.

“The kids just started doing their jobs better,” Henson said of the running game. “I think we wore them down a litte bit, we ran the same plays we just started doing our jobs a little bit better.”

Many of the good things Henson saw were on the defensive end as the Jefferson defense completely shutdown the Leopards.

Liberty was held without a first down until the second half and rushed for negative-23 yards on the game.

The Leopards did show some signs of life in the third as a personal foul on Jefferson led to a 5-yard touchdown run by quarterback Andree Bowers.

After mishandling the ensuing kickoff pinned Jefferson deep in its own territory, a mishandled snap on the punt led to a Liberty safety that cut the deficit to 26-8 with 3:22 left in the third.

But from there the Falcons settled in as the defense got a stop, and Collins capped a scoring drive with a 14-yard touchdown run to help put the game out of reach.

“We lost focus,” Henson said. “One thing we talked about is if we want to be a playoff-caliber team we have to be able to control ourselves and keep focus all the way through the game.”

Knight ended his day with a 16-yard touchdown run with 5:29 left to finish off the scoring.

Jefferson middle linebacker Hunter Bean put an exclamation point on the defense’s stout performance by sacking Bowers on a fourth down attempt by Liberty.

“We talked about that we needed to improve our run defense and that was their strong point was their running game,” Henson said. “Hunter Bean was out there firing those guys up and I thought they did a great job, I thought we tackled well tonight.”

Knight said the win was a big momentum builder going into an All-American Conference game with Niles next week.

“I think it was really important tonight because it gave us a lot of momentum,” he said. “It was a huge win, we know with Niles, we beat them and they’re a division ahead of us and it’ll help us towards our ultimate goal of making the playoffs.”