Chester football, Week 2: Jackets play hard but fall at Johnston City, 24-15
The Chester Yellow Jackets played hard for four quarters on Friday, but Johnston City claimed the victory.
"JC did a good job," acknowledged Chester Head Coach Billy Belton. "They were flying around and played hard."
The Jackets had some lingering injuries from last week's win over Hamilton County, but Belton didn't use it as an excuse.
"That's football," he said. "The next player has to step up and be ready to play."
The score was 8-0 Johnston City after one quarter, when Samuel Harris ran it in from 1 yard out for JC's first touchdown. Samuels then ran for the two-point conversion.
In the second quarter Chester answered, when Nate Heffernan threw a 6-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Eggemeyer. Jared Landeros kicked the extra point and the Jackets trailed by only one point, 8-7.
Johnston City came back later in the quarter on a 31-yard run for TD, then hit another two-point conversion to extend their lead to 16-7 at halftime.
The third quarter was a 0-0 draw. In the final period, JC's Samuel Harris scored on a 15-yard touchdown run and Ben Morgan ran in the conversion. JC was up, 24-7.
The Yellow Jackets answered with a nice 14-yard touchdown run by Jordan Merideth. Nate Heffernan ran it in for the conversion to bring Chester within nine points, 24-15. That would be the final score of the game as the Indians shut out the Jackets the rest of the game.
In the loss, Chester's Dylan Kelkhoff completed 4 of 13 passes for 74 yards and Nate Heffernan hit one pass for six yards for a total of 80 yards. JC completed just 1 of 7 pass attempts for 11 total yards.
Jordan Merideth led the Jackets in rushing with 69 yards on 18 tries. Dylan Kelkhoff ran 13 times for just eight yards - and two fumbles. Johnston City's Samuel Harris was a one-man show for the JC Indians, running for 74 yards on 17 tries.
Harris recorded two of JC's touchdowns; the rest of the Indians ran the ball 20 times for 131 yards, or a total of 205 rushing yards.
Jordan Merideth and Lucas Rader caught two passes each for the Jackets. Merideth had 38 yards and Rader recorded 36 yards receiving. Cooper Eggemeyer caught a 6-yard pass for a touchdown. Samuel Harris caught one pass for 11 yards for the Indians.
"We never really seemed to get into a good rhythm on offense," Belton said, although there were high points: Nate Heffernan throwing a great 6-yard pass to Cooper Eggemeyer for a TD; Jordan Merideth running the ball hard and Dylan Kelkhoff and Lucas Rader making some good plays on offense.
"The defense played really well," Belton said, allowing only 216 total yards of offense from the Indians.
"Our defensive backs played extremely well," he added. "They only allowed one pass to be caught and Jordan Merideth had an interception."
The Jackets made 24 tackles and recorded 24 assists. Isaac Jany had a tackle for a loss too. Freddie Alvarez led the team with three solo tackles. Jordan Merideth recorded two solo tackles and three assists. Daigen Hunter and Lucas Rader each had two solo tackles apiece and Rader added five assists.
Chester travels to Vienna April 3 for a 1 p.m. game against the Eagles; then the Jackets will host the Sesser-Vailer Red Devils on April 9 at 7 p.m.