Prep football: Neumann looks sharp after long layoff, easily topping Marco Island Academy

After his team completed its first official game in nearly a month, St. John Neumann coach Damon Jones couldn’t have been much happier just to be back on the football field.

The way his team performed Saturday afternoon did its part in keeping the coach in a good mood.

Jensen Jones – the coach’s son – threw for 187 yards and ran for 156 more in the Celtics’ 42-0 victory over Marco Island Academy in a game interrupted by nearly 2 ½ hours by a pair of lightning delays.

“We’re at the halfway point and we’d played about seven quarters of football coming in (Neumann’s game against St. Petersburg Catholic on Sept. 1 was suspended late in the third quarter),” Jones said. “There’s something wrong about that. … I’m so happy for our kids, they’ve worked so hard all summer and all fall in practice and their payoff comes during Friday night games. Or in this year’s case, a Monday night and Saturday afternoon game. But I’m happy as all get-out, and I thought we played really well, too. That’s icing on the cake.”

Jones said he wasn’t all that surprised with how effective his team looked, despite the long layoff.

“Our defense has played well all year,” Jones said. “We’ve given up six points through 10 quarters. We’re tackling well, rallying to the ball. Offensively, we were much sharper tonight, even with the three weeks off. We were able to work on some stuff that we’d been planning, and we were able to put that into practice tonight. All and all, I was really pleased with how we played, in all phases of the game, as our special teams also played very well with kick coverage, extra-point stuff. I’m just happy. So nice to have a football game in.”

The Manta Rays (1-2) seemed a bit out of sync from the start, turning the ball over three times in the first half. At times, Marco Island ran the ball effectively, but got nothing going in the passing game and struggled with ball protection.

“It felt great to be on the field with the guys today,” Manta Rays coach Damon Coiro said. “I thought maybe our heads weren’t quite where they needed to be at times. Knowing us, we just weren’t who we usually are tonight. And sometimes you’re going to have to deal with games like those. The lessons they’ve learned over these last few weeks are going to be lessons they carry with them the rest of their lives. What they’ll really remember is how they paid it forward to the community after (Hurricane Irma).”

ST. JOHN NEUMANN 42,
MARCO ISLAND ACADEMY 0

MIA        0             0             0             0             -              0

SJN         14           7             14           7             -              42

Scoring

First quarter

SJN – Jensen Jones 56 run (kick failed), 8:09

SJN – Oliver Wasem 52 pass from Jones (Jones run), 6:02

Second quarter

SJN – Nyre Handy 28 pass from Jones (Juan Pablo Pinilla kick), 10:36

Third quarter

SJN - Jones 50 run (Pinilla kick), 9:45

SJN - Eddy Garcon 7 run (Pinilla kick), :40

Fourth quarter

SJN – Jake Glasser 15 run (Pinilla kick), 7:13

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing: MIA – Austin Brooks 17-74, Wendy Luders 14-64, Joshua Ames 1-5, Kyler Howard 8-(minus 8); SJN – Jensen Jones 13-156, Thomas Balboni 1-42, Eddy Garcon 4-33, Jake Glasser 2-18, Abdias Metelus 2-12.

Passing: MIA – Howard 0-3-1; SJN – Jones 7-9-1, 187

Receiving: SJN – Oliver Wasem 3-93, Nyre Handy 2-39, Alex Myrin 2-55