Liberty vs Jefferson

Gallery

Photos by David Dermer

By Greg Gulas

sports@vindy.com

LIBERTY

Jeremiah Knight ran for 223 yards and three touchdown in Jefferson’s 28-13 victory over Liberty on Thursday at Leopard Stadium.

The Falcons (4-4) racked up 338 yards offensively in the All-American Conference intra-division contest.

It was the fourth straight game that Knight has run roughshod over an enemy defense and posted more than 200 yards rushing.

“My goal before the season was to rush for 2,000 yards,” said Knight, adding that his line has done a remarkable job in creating holes.

“It’s great to get back to the .500 mark because we started the season with a couple of tough losses,” Knight said.

Knight, who has verbally committed to play at the University of Dayton next fall, said the Liberty defense was as tough as any that he has faced this season.

“The Liberty defense is aggressive and they hit you hard,” Knight said. “Conditioning has been a big part of my game and I feel as if I am conditioned for the latter part of a game.”

Liberty head coach Chet Allen lauded the play of Knight, also adding that missed opportunities proved to be very costly for his team.”

“He’s [Knight] got my vote for Ashtabula County ‘Player of the Year,’” Allen said. “He runs hard, has a lot of strength and finds the open hole.

We lacked execution when we were deep in their territory. We ran the ball effectively, but didn’t have the killer instinct to punch it in when we needed to deep in their territory.

“We’ll look at the film and then get back to work on Monday.”

The Leopards (4-4) struck first when quarterback Dra Rushton found the end zone from 19 yards out. His conversion pass failed.

It didn’t take Jefferson long to get on the board as Knight scored the first of his three tallies 41 seconds into the second quarter. His conversion run gave the Falcons an 8-6 lead.

Jared Williams scored on a 7-yard run at the 1:54 mark for a 15-6 at halftime.

“It’s no secret that we like to run the ball and tonight, we did some nice things both inside and outside,” Jefferson head coach Jim Henson said. “Jeremiah ran hard, broke tackles and he’ll be the first to credit the guys up front for creating some running space.

“Give him a little bit of daylight and he takes advantage of it.”

The Leopards were stopped on three occasions inside the Falcons’ red zone, once while at the 5 yard-line on the very last play of the first half. Another was at at the Jefferson 6 yard-line in the third quarter.

“This was our best game defensively this season,” Henson said. “Liberty has some excellent athletes with a lot of speed. We just tackled better and made sure they didn’t break off any long runs.”

Knight’s second tally was from 35 yards out and increased the Falcons’ lead to a 21-7.

Knight added his third score from 10 yards away at 8:03 of the final quarter for a 28-6 lead.

Rushton’s second touchdown from a yard away at the 3:00 mark ended the scoring.

The Leopards, who had 307 total offensive yards, ran 21 more plays than the Falcons.