Jordan Slocum leads Southwest over Northeast

Jordan Slocum was thrown right into the fire and didn’t bat an eye.

The 6-foot-4 freshman quarterback put the Southwest Patriots on his back and delivered big play after big play, culminating in back-to-back drives that both ended in 3-yard touchdown runs in the final two minutes as Southwest knocked off rival Northeast 38-32 on Friday at Henderson Stadium.

“I was nervous the first couple of minutes, but I got more comfortable as we ran more plays,” Slocum said. “Our offensive line created holes, and we just read our blocks. Our defense was able to get the ball back to us, and that is the biggest reason we pulled this out.”

All hope of a win appeared lost late in the fourth quarter as Southwest running back Sederan Scott fumbled the ball away to Northeast inside the Northeast 15 just after Northeast quarterback Noland Ussery pushed the Raiders lead to 32-24. But Southwest’s Jaquavious Jones recovered a Northeast fumble on the ensuing possession and rumbled inside the Northeast 5-yard line to set up one of Slocum’s scoring runs.

And needing another miraculous turnover, Southwest came up with it on the ensuing kickoff as Ussery fumbled the ball away on the return with 1:45 left in the contest. Slocum capped the scoring two plays later as he punched the ball across the goal line two players later and added the two-point conversion on a bruising run up the middle.

Slocum carried the ball 13 times for 96 yards and completed 6-of-15 passes for 112 yards.

“This win was huge for the players, the process, and the Southwest community,” Southwest head coach Joseph Dupree said. “I always believe in my guys and they made it happen. At halftime we just decided to keep it simple and just play simple football and we did that. Such a huge win for us.”

Halftime looked bleak as Northeast dominated most of the second quarter behind three touchdowns and 114 yards in the first-half rushing yards from Jerome Grayer. To add to that, Carlos Jackson pushed the Northeast lead to 26-14 late in the second quarter by returning a Slocum interception 33 yards for a score.

But Northeast scored just once from that point on, leading head coach Mullen to think his team was just tired in the end.

“We came out on offense and struggled in the third quarter,” Mullen said. “We fumbled it a couple times and (Southwest) just hung around and made some plays. We ran out of gas at the end and we need to get in better shape. (Slocum) just took over at the end. My hat’s off to Southwest.”

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 11:35 PM with the headline "Jordan Slocum leads Southwest over Northeast ."