Bob Jones gets back in the win column

HARVEST- Bob Jones played one of their best games of the season against Sparkman and pulled out a 15-10 victory on Oct. 12.

The Patriots got a touchdown pass from Caden Rose to John-Michael Riley and the defense added a safety and Jacob Fruewald kicked a field goal to give Bob Jones a 12-0 halftime lead.

With Jacob Medlen at quarterback, Sparkman controlled the third quarter and Rondell Cole caught a 48-yard touchdown pass from Medlen. Then Miles Tillman kicked a 27-yard field goal to make it 12-10.

But the Sparkman defense couldn’t contain Rose on a crucial fourth quarter drive. Rose hit Riley for 40 yards as the Patriots set up kicker Fruewald who hit a 26 yard field goal.

Defensively, Bob Jones got huge efforts from Chris Cobb and Tavias Clark. Clark sacked Medlen on the game’s final play.

Bob Jones has had injuries to key players this year but now seems to have accepted that and moved on.

“We played good football tonight,” head coach Kevin Rose said after the game. “We did a great job in the kicking game. Our offense scored enough points to win. Our defense had negative plays.”

Rose said that he told his team to trust each other. He said the offense seemed to try overcompensate for the defense and the other way around after the injuries to Jaydon Hill and Dylan Ray rocked the team.

Rose said that making the playoffs is “not even on my mind. We just got to play Austin Thursday night with the energy and passion we did tonight and hope we can make a big play at the end to win it. I don’t think we gave up a return yard all night on special teams. Bryan Styles, our defensive coordinator, had a great game plan. At the end I trusted our defense to hold the lead.”

The versatile John Michael Riley now had 10 touchdown catches for the season. He has caught 45 passes for 905 yards.

Bob Jones is now 5-3 (2-3) with home games left against Austin (Oct. 18) and Huntsville (Oct. 26).