By Chris Kinkaid

THE DAILY NEWS

 

Franklinton scored the game’s final 14 points, but the Demons’ comeback came up short in a 19-14 loss to defending Division I state champion Jesuit in non-district action on Senior Night Friday at FHS.

The Demons trailed 19-0 after three quarters, but made a fourth-quarter rally.

Franklinton got on the board when Tahj Magee found Azende T. Magee on a 5-yard touchdown pass. Raif Branch was good on the extra point, trimming it to 19-7. The key play on the drive was a 26-yard pass from Tahj Magee to Ryché Jenkins that brought the ball to the Jesuit 4. The scoring pass was on second down after a yard loss on a running play.

It stayed 19-7 until late in the game, when Tahj Magee passed to Chandler Davis, who made the catch in the end zone for a 33-yard touchdown with 50 seconds left. Branch’s extra point pulled the Demons within five.

Franklinton was unable to recover the onside kick, and Jesuit knelt down twice to end the game.

“They’re a quality football team and they do a good job,” Franklinton coach Shane Smith said. “We’ll learn a lot from the film and I think our kids learned about what we can and can’t do. It’s been a while since we played an opponent like this, back to West Monroe. You don’t have much margin for error in those kind of games. We came up short.”

Jesuit jumped out to a 13-0 lead at halftime. Franklinton punted on the opening drive and Malachi Hull had a big return down to the Demons’ 31. Jesuit moved the ball to Franklinton’s 6 and scored on second-and-goal when Peter Hontas threw a short pass to Bryce Musso. Musso broke a tackle and scored to make it 6-0, with 6:33 left in the first quarter. The extra point was wide.

Jesuit had a chance to extend the lead, but Franklinton’s red zone defense stepped up and forced an incompletion on fourth-and-goal from the 3 with 57 seconds on the clock.

The Demons then had a chance to score. They embarked on an 18-play, 81-yard drive, but turned the ball over on downs at Jesuit’s 16 after coming up 2 yards short of the first down on fourth-and-7 from the Blue Jays’ 21.

In the drive, the Demons converted one third down and two fourth downs. The second fourth down conversion was a fake punt, which Relik Wilson ran 32 yards down to Jesuit’s 24.

Jesuit then went 84 yards in 10 plays and scored when Hontas threw to Kalija Lipscomb on a pass across the middle on third-and-16 from the Franklinton 21. Lipscomb took it the rest of the way to make it 13-0, after Crew Jacobs was good on the extra point.

Jesuit added one more touchdown when Hontas found a wide-open Musso on a 33-yard connection. The two-point pass was incomplete.

Franklinton took the ensuing drive down to Jesuit’s 9 and had third-and-1, but was unable to get a first on third or fourth down before turning it over on downs. The fourth down play was the first play of the final quarter.

The loss snapped a four-game winning streak by Franklinton. The Demons are 6-3 this season and close out the regular season on the road against Pearl River in a District 8-4A contest. Jesuit improved to 4-5.