James Clemens crushes Huntsville, eyes playoff position
Labryan Ray and John Jenkins tackle a Huntsville ball carrier (Photo Contributed/ Chris Shimek)
MADISON- James Clemens posted a 55-8 win over Huntsville Thursday night. It is the Jets fifth win in a row as they try to claim a share of the region title.
The Jets have region games remaining against Buckhorn and Hewitt-Trussville and a non-region game against Austin. If the Jets win out it would force a three-way tie at the top of the region standings if Bob Jones wins out. In that case, record against non-region opponents is the first tie breaker.
Thursday night the Jets took command early as quarterback Jamil Muhammed kept the ball on the ground. Bradley Belt scored three touchdowns and the Jets led 21-0 after the first quarter and 41-0 at half.
Working mostly with a short field the starting offense for the second week in a row was not put under pressure, something Coach Wade Waldrop needs to work on for future games.
“It’s about plays and how many we are getting. We played half a game last week and this week too. If it’s a four quarter game against Buckhorn how are we going to react. It hurt us earlier in the year against Gardendale. At the end of the game, mentally and physically, we weren’t where we needed to be. Tonight we had a two minute situation we wanted to run for Jamil and we didn’t execute,” Waldrop said.
The Jets special teams continued to produce points as Kyriq McDonald returned a punt 73 yards for a score and Torolla Walker returned a blocked punt for another score. Defensively Monty Rice intercepted a pass and returned it 32 yards for his first touchdown of the season.
LaBryan Ray had two tackles for loss and a fumble recovery before retiring in the second quarter.
“We are back on track from the start of the season,” Ray said. “We focus on one game at a time, keep working hard. It means a lot for us for Jamil to be playing well.”
The Oct. 21 game on the road at Hewitt-Trussville will be huge. The Huskies are the top scoring team in 7A averaging 50 points a game.
“Hewitt is a great team it will be a big challenge for us,” Ray said. “We are staying focused both in practice and in games in order to finish the season the way we want to.”
The Jets are relatively healthy for the stretch run.
In team news this week Ray was presented with his jersey for the 2017 Under Armour All America game to be played Jan. 1, 2017 in Orlando, Fla. and televised on ESPN.
Ray and offensive tackle Skylar Boyd were selected to the Alabama All-Star team to play in the 30th annual Alabama-Mississippi All-Star football game Dec. 10 in Montgomery.
