Jesuit’s high powered offense proved to be too much for the Eagles, as they lost Friday night 31-16 in front of Richardson’s homecoming crowd.
Andrew Buckmeier’s 43-yard field goal put the Eagles up 3-0 in the 2nd quarter, but that was the last time the Eagles held the lead. Jesuit responded by moving the ball down the field with surgical precision, using 10 plays to put the Rangers up 7-3. And then, as time expired, Jesuit kicked a 37-yard field goal before heading to the locker room for half time.
Coming back from half time, Jesuit picked up right where they left off. They scored two more unanswered touchdowns in the 3rd quarter. One came from a David Kaplin rush and the other came from a blocked punt recovered by Tucker Rice for 13 yards and a touchdown. Richardson finally answered in the fourth quarter with a scoring drive capped off by Devante Branch’s 2-yard run. Jesuit quickly replied afterwards, with a 13 yard Mike Savage run to quickly end any thoughts of a homecoming rally. Torrance Carr ran in a late touchdown to make the final score 31-16. The Rangers prevailed in disrupting the Eagles homecoming game.
“Losing is hard enough,” senior safety Joey Schattle said. “But the fact that we lost our last homecoming game at Richardson made it even more bitter, losing by 3 scores makes it even worse.”
The team was clearly dejected after the crushing homecoming defeat.
“This game was very disappointing” Garrett Cline continued, “We work our butts off all week and this is the result we get?’
Jesuit’s quarterback Mike Savage threw for 204 yards with a 60% completion rating. Jesuit’s Jake Oliver accounted for 99 yards of Savage’s 204 in a dominant air display. For Richardson, Torrance Carr had an extremely versatile performance, throwing for 84 yards, receiving 2 catches for 12 yards, and rushed for 102 yards; the most of any player in the game.
The Eagles fall to 5-2 overall and more importantly to 2-2 in division play.
“We made things a lot more difficult for our selves by losing this one,” Schattle said.
Division records are vital to playoff births, so it will be crutial for the Eagles post season success to bounce back from this loss and to move on by beating rival Berkner.
“We are just going to have to go back to work starting Monday morning,” senior Skylar Ellis said.
The biggest story of the night though was Jordan Booty’s injury, which left him on the sidelines with street clothes and a boot on his foot. Richardson felt his absence in the loss.
“When Jordan left the game we know we had to step up,” Carr said. “But we didn’t do enough to fill his spot.”
Jordan expects that his injury is a high ankle sprain, but won’t know for sure until after the x-ray to check for a break in the bone. Booty will miss next week, when RHS faces rival Berkner, and possibly the week following that. Offensive players will need to step up and fill in for the big spot Booty will leave vacant. Sophomore running back Derick Jackson will have some big shoes to fill while Booty is out with a bum ankle.
Next week Richardson will be looking to put this homecoming loss behind them by beating Berkner for the second year in a row at Wildcat-Ram Stadium.