JM dominates Culpeper

A glimmer of hope gleamed in the Blue Devils’ eyes as time got short in the first half of Friday’s game against defending state champion James Monroe High School.

Culpeper only trailed the visiting Jackets by 12 points when the Blue Devils got the ball with a little over 4:00 left in the second quarter, but that’s when the bottom dropped out.

Amidst a couple costly Culpeper turnovers, James Monroe reeled off 23 unanswered points in the final minutes of the opening half and rode the ensuing wave of momentum all the way to a 49-8 victory.

“The kids were lit up at half time,” JM coach Rich Serbay said. “They were singing, dancing and jumping up and down. We have an emotional bunch of kids and I’m an emotional coach so we feed off of each other.”

It all began with one poor decision.

Culpeper quarterback Cortez Rollins dropped back to pass with 4:05 left in the second quarter but had Jackets hanging all over him as he heaved the ball towards a tangled web of players.

James Monroe’s A.J. Sims emerged from the pack with the interception, and on the very next play quarterback Farkeem French broke at least five tackles on his way to a 36-yard touchdown scamper. The Jackets (4-1 overall, 2-0 in the Battlefield District) added a two-point conversion to go up 20-0.

“We made some dumb mistakes in that second quarter,” CCHS coach Mike Williams said. “That’s what let them jump on that lead.”

Then Rollins couldn’t handle the first snap of the Blue Devils’ (1-4, 1-1) ensuing possession and JM’s Charlie McDaniel pounced on the loose ball on Culpeper’s five-yard line.

James Monroe running back Mike Latney scored from five yards on the first play after the fumble and the Jackets went up 26-0 after their kicker missed the extra point.

It was Latney’s second touchdown of the night. The junior’s first came on a one-yard dive earlier in the second quarter, and he finished with 75 yards on 18 carries.

“Latney runs hard,” Serbay said. “He’s a down-hill runner. He’s not like other guys that hit a hole and explode, but when he gets his pads square down field and finds a crease he’s hard to stop.”

The Blue Devils left many fans scratching their heads on their next possession.

After the offense got backed up inside Culpeper’s one-yard line by penalties and solid play by JM’s defense, Rollins took a shotgun snap and launched the ball out of the back of the end zone to give the Jackets a safety and a 28-0 lead.

“I wasn’t going to give them six more points,” Williams said in reference to the intentional safety. “We were inside the one-yard line, so if we tried to punt we ran the risk of getting it blocked and if we tried to run it out we may have given up the safety anyway.”

The Jackets gladly accepted the Blue Devils’ generosity, but they weren’t done yet.

With less than a minute left in the second quarter, French orchestrated a drive that he capped with a three-yard touchdown pass to senior Greg Edwards with 32 seconds left on the clock.

French — an All-State selection as a defensive back last season — led the Jackets with 195 total yards and four touchdowns. The senior completed 8-of-15 passes for 140 yards and three touchdowns, and ran for 55 yards and a score.

“He (French) is really starting to develop into a quarterback,” Serbay said. “There were a lot of question marks, but he’s a leader and the biggest thing about Farkeem is that he’s a winner and that’s why he’s my quarterback.”

French hooked up with Rashard Driscoll on a 20-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, and junior Dovan Allen scored the Jackets’ final points from eight yards out with 6:14 left in the game.

After containing James Monroe’s explosive offense for much of the first half, the Blue Devils barely had time to blink and they were staring at a 35-point deficit heading into the locker room at halftime, and that didn’t sit well.

“They were a little shaken,” Williams said. “I would have been too, but we made a couple adjustments at halftime and came out and played a better second half.”

Junior Donald Downs scored all of the Blue Devils’ points Friday night. In his second week of splitting time with Rollins at quarterback, Downs seemed to get in a rhythm as the game wore on.

Downs connected with senior John Lezcano on a 22-yard completion in the third quarter, and found him again on a 17-yard touchdown pass in the fourth.

Downs then plowed into the end zone for the two-point conversion on a fake extra point attempt with 9:35 left in the game.

“He (Downs) did a great job tonight,” Williams said. “Cortez (Rollins) has a bum leg so he was limited in what he could do, so Donald stepped in and filled in nicely.”

The Blue Devils will be in action again Friday when they hit the road for a game against Battlefield foe King George.