BROOKLET - On a night when Southeast Bulloch celebrated the 50th anniversary of their 1972-73 back-to-back state championships, the Yellow Jackets were unable to come away with a win, falling to New Hampstead 50-34 Friday night.
Despite putting up 34 points, the Yellow Jacket offense struggled for much of the night to sustain drives which allowed New Hampstead’s high-powered offense to stay on the field more than SEB Head Coach Jared Zito would have preferred.
“I thought we, offensively, didn’t stay on the field like we needed to and didn’t chew the ground game up like we like to do,” he said. “They came out in a completely different defense than we’d seen on film,” Zito said. “It’s frustrating when you put a lot of time and effort into a certain game plan and you get repetitions against a certain look (and you see something different.) We made a couple of critical errors and they have some really good players.”
On the night, the Yellow Jackets (4-3, 1-1) finished with 109 yards rushing and 104 yards through the air, which Zito said was not ideal when SEB wants to control the line of scrimmage and dominate in the rushing game.
New Hampstead (3-3, 1-1) jumped out to a 14-0 lead as they dominated the first quarter, scoring on drives of 70 and 68 yards on their opening two drives as it looked as though the Phoenix might run away with the game.
Southeast Bulloch responded early in the second quarter when Cole Snyder knocked through a 26-yard field goal to cap a 45 yard drive that stalled at the 9 yard line.
The Yellow Jackets then surprised New Hampstead with an onside kick, recovered by Brandon Wells of SEB at the Phoenix’s 36 yard line.
On the next snap, quarterback Will Nelson found Kyon Taylor out of the backfield on the left where the New Hampstead defense lost track of him. Nelson’s pass floated into Taylor’s hands who outran the defense to cut the Phoenix lead to 14-10 following Snyders PAT.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Yellow Jackets were able to swarm the Phoenix returner who, after some hesitation, was just barely able to get out of the end zone to the one yard line.
Four plays later, SEB was able to get a hand on the punt and it only went eight yards, setting up the Yellow Jackets at the New Hampstead 13 yard line.
Following a penalty on the Phoenix, Taylor took a handoff and went up the middle and, aided by a strong push from the SEB offensive line, broke the plane of the endzone to put Southeast Bulloch ahead 17-14.
The Phoenix were able to right the ship on their next possession, going 61 yards in two plays to retake the lead, 21-14.
Following an SEB fumble at midfield, New Hampstead scored again, this time going 49 yards in four plays, capped off with a nine-yard touchdown pass to take a 29-17 lead after the two point conversion.
The Yellow Jackets responded again. Following a kickoff out of bounds that put SEB at the 35, Nelson scrambled left and then cut back to his right and raced 64 yards to the one yard line. Quentin Reed finished off the drive with a one-yard run to cut the lead going into halftime to 29-24.
Southeast Bulloch received the second half kickoff, but were unable to get a first down and had to punt, giving New Hampstead the ball at their own 35. Five plays later, quarterback Rashawn Truell found Malachi Lonnon open for a 45-yard touchdown pass to extend the Phoenix’s lead to 36-24.
That was the second of Lonnon’s three touchdown receptions on the night as he finished with 11 catches for 161 yards. Truell ended the night with four touchdown passes and 297 yards through the air.
“Defensively, I thought we played very uncharacteristically of us. I didn’t think we tackled well and we didn’t cover well.”
In addition to the nearly 300 yards passing, SEB surrendered 199 yards rushing and three touchdowns, including two from Kamari Maxwell. Maxwell ran for 118 yards on just seven carries.
“The biggest thing we didn’t do as well as we should have is tackle them once they made the catch,” Zito said. “
The Phoenix added another touchdown early in the fourth quarter when Jartavios Malone hauled in a 15-yard touchdown pass to cap off an 85 yard drive and extending NHHS’s lead to 43-24.
Southeast Bulloch answered back with another Snyder field goal from 33 yards out to trim the lead, but it wasn’t enough as the Phoenix were able to march down the field and get their final touchdown of the night to extend the lead to 50-27.
The Yellow Jackets added a late touchdown when Wells found Taylor for a 32-yard touchdown pass, but it was too little, too late for SEB.
Taylor finished the night with those two touchdown receptions for 68 yards and added 35 yards on 12 carries on the ground.
“I appreciate our guys not quitting at the end, but tonight, they kicked our butt and so we’ve got to lick our wounds, reload and start over on Monday.”
On the night, New Hampstead finished with 23 penalties for more than 160 yards while Southeast Bulloch had five penalties for 30 yards.
The Yellow Jackets close out the home portion of their schedule on Friday when the top-ranked Benedictine comes to Fred Shaver Field in another key region matchup for the Yellow Jackets.
“We’re going to play a good football team the next three games,” Zito said. “All we can do is make some corrections, go back to the drawing board and come out next Friday and give it our all.”
