FORNEY, Texas – The Wills Point Tigers came to Forney's City Bank Stadium on Friday night for the 2014 non-district season opener against the Forney High School Jackrabbits.
FORNEY, Texas – The Wills Point Tigers came to Forney's City Bank Stadium on Friday night for the 2014 non-district season opener against the Forney High School Jackrabbits.
Things immediately went south for Wills Point as the first official play from scrimmage resulted in an interception and the Jackrabbit offense promptly put 7 points on the board. On the following Wills Point possession, Forney forced a fumble on the first play from scrimmage. Quarterback Luke Skipper and the Jackrabbit offense once again took advantage and put another touchdown on the board for an early 14-0 lead.
The first half continued in much the same way and was all Jackrabbits, all the time. Troy Hoover got in on the scoring action by scooping a blocked punt, after a bad snap, and scampering 11 yards for another Jackrabbit touchdown and a 21-0 score. By the time the halftime horn sounded, the Jackrabbits had added another two touchdowns and had a huge halftime lead of 35-0.
The Jackrabbit defense had a great start to their efforts by forcing 5 turnovers in the first half. The offense showed some diversity by spreading their four touchdowns across three players. Luke Skipper had the first two scores, while running backs AJ Atnip and Chazz Slatinsky took the ball across the goal line for the last two touchdowns of the first half.
The second half was, in many ways, one the Jackrabbits would like to forget. It started poor on the kickoff with a personal foul and ejection for Shakur Morrow. Morrow had been a contributor in the first half by catching a couple of passes for good pains and keeping the Wills Point defense on their heels.
Wills Point quarterback Kaese Kosko then got the Tiger offense, and specifically the passing game, on track. With a Jackrabbit offense that had suddenly bogged down, the Tigers took advantage and put 21 unanswered points on the board. What seemed like an easy second half for the Jackrabbits was all of a sudden a real football game.
At this point, the Jackrabbit offense got unstuck courtesy of a 28 yard touchdown by Chazz Slatinsky to make the score 42-21. But once again, the Wills Point offense was not done. Two more touchdowns by the Tigers and the Jackrabbits were all of a sudden staring at just a 14 point lead of 35-21.
The next Jackrabbit possession featured long runs by Atnip and Slatinsky, with Slatinsky eventually getting the touchdown on a 21 yard touchdown run. With 7:58 to go in the game, the 21 point cushion finally allowed the Jackrabbit faithful to let out the collective breath they had been holding for most of the second half.
Little did they know, Kosko and the Tigers were not done either. Kosko immediately responded for the Tigers with a 59-yard pass to Jah Golden to get it back to a 14 point game with over 7 minutes to go. The ensuing kickoff was a perfect on-side kick recovered by the Tigers. On this possession, Kosko took the ball himself and scored on a 9 yard run to reduce the Jackrabbit lead to just 6 points at 42-36.
The Jackrabbits defense stepped up and prevented the Tigers from getting to the endzone for the remainder of the game. The offense decided to take matters into their own hands and put two more AJ Atnip scores on the board, 17 and 3 yards respectively, to make the final score 55-36.
A typical season opener for both teams, the game was marred by penalties and turnovers. Forney lost the penalty battle, with 17 penalties for 110 yards. The defense and special teams won the turnover battle for Forney with a total of 8 forced turnovers on the night, while the Jackrabbits committed three turnovers of their own.
Game photos provided by Big Shots Photography of Forney, Texas. Visit their website for more.