Jones County holds off Evans

GRAY -- Jones County head coach Justin Rogers admitted earlier in the week that he was a bit worried about his team having a letdown coming off a big win over Houston County.

But even with a somewhat sluggish performance, the Greyhounds found a way to win a key GHSA Region 2-AAAAA game by defeating Evans 17-10 on Friday night. Quarterback Bradley Hunnicutt, who threw two interceptions, found Shareez Hamm on a 53-yard scoring pass with 3:40 left in the game to give the Greyhounds the win.

Jones County improves to 7-1 overall and 6-1 in GHSA Region 2-AAAAA.

"It was by far my worst game of the year," said Hunnicutt, who completed 16-of-32 passes for 175 yards. "But the only thing that really matters is that we found a way to win. We had guys step up in big situations, and we got another region win.

Jones County took advantage of a special teams play in the first quarter to set up the first score. Tyric Solomon blocked a punt, which gave the Greyhounds good field position at the Knights' 49-yard line. After one first down, the Greyhounds' drive stalled, and they lined up to punt. But the ball was snapped instead to upback Torrez Finney, who rambled 30 yards all the way down to the 3. Two plays later, Terell Solomon took it in from 2 yards out, and Josh Skinner added the extra point

Evans mounted a drive of its own that ended with a 34-yard field goal by Max Tyler to cut the Greyhounds' lead to 7-3, and that ended up being the halftime score.

Jones County put a good drive together to start the third quarter, but the Evans defense stiffened, and the Greyhounds had to settle for a 27-yard field goal from Skinner.

Evans put together a great drive midway through the fourth quarter and finally scored a touchdown on a 42-yard run by Levin Lackey to tie the game at 10 with 4:54 left, but a minute later, Hunnicutt found Hamm for the game-winner. The Jones County defense, led by Finney and Eli Rooks, stopped the Knights cold on four plays to seal the win.

"I will tell you what, the offense may have had a letdown, but our defense played lights out for the entire football game," Rogers said. "We were up against a team that had to have a win, and they played a great game, but we just didn't do much on offense at all, and we will learn from it. But it's a lot better to learn a lesson with a win than with a loss."

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 11:55 PM with the headline "Jones County holds off Evans ."