Antonio Clay-Jones carries Evergreen Park past Reavis

By Xavier Sanchez
Correspondent

No deficit in sports is too great to overcome unless the double zeros on the clock are reached. Unfortunately for Reavis High School, that was the situation in their Week 3 matchup with Evergreen Park High School.

Despite every Reavis Rams (1-2) effort to overcome their deficit, the Evergreen Park Mustangs (3-0) remain undefeated with a 27-20 victory on September 8.

Early on, both offenses were slow to get things going as they faced several penalties as well as tough defenses that had forced turnovers both by interceptions and on downs. It was not until the 10:55 mark in the second quarter that a team finally scored. That score came on a Reavis Rams’ field goal giving them a 3-0 lead.

That would be it for some time for the Rams as the Mustangs would take over for nearly two quarters of the game. Antonio Clay-Jones continued his tremendous start to his season with two touchdowns in the first half.

Evergreen Park head coach Jim Ramazinski had high praise for his guys in the backfield.

“He’s (Clay-Jones) been really consistent for us. He’s been doing a really good job. David Johnson has been doing a good job back there as well, and Jedidiah (Adjayi) has been carrying a lot of the load.”

Right before the half, the Rams kicked another field goal to get within a touchdown of the Mustangs. With just two seconds left on the clock, Evergreen Park quarterback Deijon Feliciano launched a pass toward the end zone and Ellis Jackson managed to come up with the ball to close out the half and give the Mustangs a 20-6 lead.

Evergreen Park running back Antonio Clay-Jones talks with a Mustangs coach during a win over Reavis on Sept. 8. Photo by Xavier Sanchez

The Mustangs started the second half as they finished the first half when Adjayi went 53 yards to put the Mustangs up 27-6.

Despite the score, the Rams were not going away as they made several attempts to whittle down the Mustangs’ lead.

Reavis head coach Tim Zasada explained that his team makes sure that no matter what is happening in the game they continue to play hard and compete.

“It’s the one thing we always do. We always play until the end. You never know what can happen and we had a shot at the end. You gotta play to the end. It’s high school football and strange things happen.”

After a major fourth and goal turnover in the third quarter by the Mustangs, Feliciano took off on a 70-yard run but would leave the game injured. Caleb Keyser would take his place.

“They are pretty good at understanding game situations. Deijon is one of our leaders. He’s a great player and when he goes down, we don’t like to see it. But our guys know that other people will have to step up in his absence,” said Ramazinski.

That’s when the Reavis Rams got their offense rolling. Reavis quarterback Nick Gomez found his teammate Nick Pryor downfield to put the Rams in great scoring position. On the next play, Gomez runs it in for the first Rams touchdown of the night, and makes it a two-score game entering the fourth quarter.

Gomez made it interesting with his second touchdown of the night, late in the game, to cut the lead to 27-20.

He and the Rams had one last shot to even up the score but a late-game interception by Adjayi sealed the Mustangs victory.

Reavis will look to rebound when they return home for their Week 4 matchup with an undefeated Argo (3-0). Evergreen Park on the other hand will look to build on their 3-0 record with a non-conference matchup against Bremen (2-1).