Hebron Christian Football Routs East Jackson

COMMERCE — After both football teams completed their first drives, it was clear Hebron Christian Lions were far too powerful for the East Jackson Eagles in a 66-7 rout Saturday afternoon.

With a smothering defense and unrelenting offense, Hebron Christian charged to a commanding victory in its Region 8-AA opener. The offense rocketed down the field drive after drive through the quarterback play of Thomas Stallworth and the smothering defense line led by Carrington Coombs and a lockdown secondary exemplified in the electric play of Gerritt Kemp held the Eagles scoreless until the Eagles’ final drive of the game. 

Firing on all cylinders, the Lions' offense had a pair of rushing touchdowns by Devon Caldwell and Jarvis Mathurin, and quarterback Thomas Stallworth lit up the sky with passing touchdowns to Gerritt Kemp, Adrian Hollingshed and Noah Hill all in the first half.

On the other side of the ball, Hebron locked down East Jackson, which failed to generate any offense in the first half, earning only 1 total yard in the first quarter and finished the half with 21 yards, three first downs, with zero points to show.

In the second half, East Jackson continued to sputter while Hebron Christian continued to chug along, scoring on the first play of the half when Mathurin took a screen pass 56 yards to the end zone extending the lead to 52-0. The final points of the afternoon for the Lions came on a fourth down conversion that got the first down and more due to Hill who was wide open for a 51-yard passing touchdown. 

East Jackson’s offense in the second half played better, but only found two scoring opportunities, where they missed a 35-yard field goal attempt as well as a 31-yard receiving touchdown which ended the shutout late in the fourth quarter. 

The Hebron Christian offense was unstoppable, only failing to score with 4:30 to go in the fourth quarter once the game’s outcome was unquestionable and the buses for the Lions had already been started. 

“Offensively it was great I think Thomas Stallworth threw for over 300 yards and we've got two great running backs [Caldwell and Hollingshed]” said Hebron head coach Jonathan Gess. “We just want to keep balance and be able to run the football. We want to be explosive in the passing game and we were able to do that. We just want to keep building on that and keep getting better. Stay balanced in the run-pass scenario and great things will happen.”

Stallworth completed 14 of 19 passes for 309 yards and five touchdowns, and Mathurin had 232 all-purpose yards — five catches for 124 yards and a TD and 108 return yards, including his 70-yard punt return TD. Hill had three catches for 101 yards and two scores.

Sichan John dominated on the defensive front and finished with 6 tackles, Coombs had two sacks and four quarterback pressures and Albert Wilham had nine tackles (two for losses).

The Lions were explosive in all aspects, scoring in diverse ways. The offense had a pick-your-poison style attack, scoring both passing and rushing. Even when the Eagles mustered up a stop, the Lions drilled a 43-yard field goal. 

When the offense was on the sideline, the special teams found a way to put points on the board when Mathurin returned a punt 75 yards to the house. The Lions completed the trifecta of scoring when Kemp lurked in the secondary to pick off a pass and return it for six points, making the offense, special teams and defense all account for a touchdown on the scoreboard.

“We want to feed off our defense so we always want our defense to set the tone for us,” Gess said. “I’m super proud of our defense, they have been playing great all year.”

While the game was rescheduled due to weather concerns, the only noticeable effects before the game were the strong gusts of wind and the tempered but modest crowd for the noon kickoff. 

When asked if the weather delay affected the preparation for this game, Gess said, “Not really. There wasn't school on Thursday and there wasn't school on Friday. We were actually able to come up and do a walk-through on Friday but we didn't get to practice Wednesday afternoon and didn't get to practice Thursday.”

“Maybe the kids felt fresh, maybe they got a break. I think everybody may have needed it…and their bodies kind of recovered a little bit but you know whatever happened they came out on point today.” 

Gess also remarked on last week's loss as well as mentioned how to move forward the rest of the season.

“Blessed Trinity kind of exposed some of our weaknesses and you don't know sometimes that you have blind spots," he said. "You don't know what is a weakness but a great team can show you that. They exposed [weaknesses] and we came back this week and had a great week of practice. Challenged the kids and challenged the coaches to clean up our junk and we did and we came out here and played the way that we should play.”

“And you know it's really awesome to get back after losing last week… our defense played dominant and our offense feeds off our defense, so great game for us.” 

Hebron will look to duplicate its region dominance as it heads to Hart County, while East Jackson will look to turn the page quickly at Franklin County.