Jackson Christian turned in another dominant performance to pick up a win over First Assembly Christian School, 35-7, on Friday.
The Eagles (7-0, 3-0 Division II-A West) held the Crusaders to 91 total yards of offense. Two of those came in the second half.
“This defense is full of good guys who are committed to this team and doing their job the best they can to help the team,” said Eagles head coach Darby Palmer. “And FACS is a good team that came in with a good plan, but our defense made a couple of big adjustments that were what we needed.”
Jay’Len Mosley caught four touchdown passes in the rout.
“This was just my night I guess where I was lucky enough to make the catches, and I was open enough to get to the end zone,” Mosley said.
Palmer said his team continued to do a good job of blocking out the external noise from outside the locker room as they prepared for the matchup.
“FACS is a good team with some good athltes that touch the ball a lot, so we knew we were in for a battle,” Palmer said. “But we want these guys to stay in the moment – not worry about a week ago or the last play or who we have in the next game.
“Stay in this moment, play this game against this opponent and not think about anything other than the task at hand,” Palmer said.
Offensive lineman Ty Smith said the players have gotten good at that. After describing a typical week for the linemen where they learn the opposing defense’s tendencies and then learning what they plan to do to combat them to the point that it becomes muscle memory by Friday night, he said the line is able to do that because of the ability they’ve collectively developed to stay in the moment.
“Once we’re done with a game, it’s over and in the past and we’re on to the next one,” Smith said. “So for us, once we’re finished with this game, whatever we learned for this game against the team we played tonight, we need to put it out of our minds and approach next week with the mindset we’re learning something new this week that will help us win.”
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news