James Clemens Philip Nobles reaches for a Johnson ball carrier.

A night that began full of promise as the first game in the history of James Clemens ended in disappointment as the team showed they still had a lot of growing to do as the Jets fell to Johnson, a class 4A school who only had 35 players and many playing both ways.  The final score was 20-7.

On defense, James Clemens had no answer for Johnson’s pair of running backs who combined for 141 yards rushing in the first half. Myles Williams Jones scored the first touchdown of the game on Johnson’s first possession on a 16 yard run.

For the second week in a row James Clemens botched a punt snap. This time the snap from Ryan Paris sailed over punter Phillip Nobles head. Johnson took over at the 16-yard line and converted on fourth and 12.  Two plays later quarterback Wesley Bailey dived in for a touchdown and James Clemens trailed 14-0.

“I was proud of the way our guys continued to play,” said James Clemens head coach Bill Stewart. “At no point did I see anyone sink their head even when we were down 20-0. They felt we could win all the way through the game.”

Late in the first quarter, JCHS quarterback Heath Burchfield threw the first of four interceptions he had in the game. The freshman, who won the starting job this week, had several passes dropped including one to Chapman Olive that would have been a touchdown.

Overall Burchfield attempted 40 passes and completed 18 for 148 yards.

“That’s the kind of offense we run. We will balance it when we can,” Stewart said. “It is a fast paced offense and when we start executing on all cylinders we are going to be all right. We had some miscues.”

One part of the game that improved was the punting of Philip Nobles when he could get one off.  His first punt went for 44 yards and pinned Johnson at their two-yard line.

The rest of the game James Clemens went for it on fourth down. Five times the Jets kept the offense on the field on fourth down. They converted only once.

Johnson closed the first half with a 30-yard touchdown pass from Bailey to Charles Woodard and took a 20-0 lead.

The James Clemens offense got untracked in the third quarter with a variety of screen passes to tight end Trevor Makarov and down field crossing routes to Deondre Douglas. However a high snap cost the Jets a 10-yard loss and ended one drive.

Burchfield threw two second half interceptions, one of them on a deflection.

On defense, James Clemens shut out the potent Johnson offense in the second half. They forced and recovered 3 fumbles in the second half and in the fourth quarter the offense finally cashed one of them in for points. Deondre Douglas made a juggling catch on a short pass and broke into the clear for a 64-yard gain down to the 6-yard line. Matthew Stewart scored the first touchdown in school history with 6:55 left in the fourth quarter on a 3 yard run.

Kicker David Kridner, who just joined the team last week, booted the extra point.

Stewart said that the Jets are still moving players to different positions to find the right combination.  Chapman Olive is one example. He played receiver after starting at quarterback last week in the jamboree game. 

“I told the team that this one game will not define us as a team,” said Stewart after the game. “We are going to compete to win each game. We did that in the second half. Every player out there was fighting to win but we fell short in the game. We persevered tonight and I was proud of them for that. We are making some mistakes that happen when you are young, but now we have a game under out belt.”  

Next week James Clemens is at home again against Bob Jones.