It was a heck of a homecoming game Friday night for both senior running back Jarveon Howard and the East Marion Eagles.
The highly recruited back averaged more than 25 yards per carry and had two touchdown runs longer than 60 yards in a 52-28 home win over Richton. The Eagles also got a dazzling performance from quarterback Devin Daniels, who had three rushing touchdowns of incredible difficulty and has shown signs of being half of a terrific duo for East Marion the past two weeks.
East Marion (2-2) wasted no time getting on the board as a 26-yard run by Howard — that turned into a 41-yard net gain with a facemask penalty — set up a Daniels 24-yard touchdown run in which he didn’t find an open target on the designed pass, but made two defenders miss on the way to the end zone. Howard ran in the two-point conversion to give the Eagles an 8-0 lead less than two minutes into the game.
Richton answered right back when Za’Darius Smith avoided the Eagles rush and found Daylen Jones for a 9-yard touchdown. The Rebels knotted it up at 8-8 with the two-point conversion midway through the first quarter.
A 13-yard sack derailed the Eagles ensuing possession, setting up a 40-yard touchdown pass from Smith to DD Griffin to give Richton a 14-8 lead to begin the second quarter.
However, the Rebels only lead of the game lasted all of 31 seconds on the game clock. Howard took a handoff and raced 83 yards down the right sideline on the Eagles first play of the ensuing drive. Then Daniels pulled off a Houdini-like act on the two-point conversion. It was a designed quarterback draw and Daniels reversed field three times, making the entire defense look silly, before connecting with Darrin Haines in the end zone to give the Eagles a 16-14 lead.
“The team is gaining more confidence and playing with more enthusiasm even though we started off slow,” head coach Kevin Jackson said. “I saw a lot of maturity out of our quarterback (Daniels), who had a really good game. We have a lot of kids that are growing up on this football team.”
The Eagles defense then forced a Richton punt, but East Marion gave the ball back to the Rebels as Wanya Cook fumbled at the tail end of a 19-yard reception. But Flenard McLin ended the threat, intercepting Smith in the end zone.
The Eagles offense struck quickly yet again with Daniels screaming down the sideline for a 40-yard touchdown on the third play of the drive. Howard ran in the two-point conversion and Daniels came up with an interception to end the half with the Eagles up 24-14.
Led by Cook’s 11 tackles — three for loss — and 2.5 sacks, East Marion’s defense began to put the shackles on Smith and the Rebels offense to open the second half. Following a Richton punt, Daniels’ magic shined once again. With the Eagles on Richton’s 6-yard line, a shotgun snap flew over Daniels’ head, but he collected it at the 20, made three defenders miss and scored his third touchdown of the game. Howard ran in the two-point try, putting the Eagles up 32-14 midway through the third quarter.
Howard then forced a fumble, which was recovered by Lawrence Lambert, and took a handoff 62 yards to the house after stiff-arming a linebacker. He ran in yet another two-point conversion, making it 40-14 with 2:47 left in the third quarter.
Richton had a couple garbage-time touchdowns, while Kevonta Scott had a 48-yard fumble return for a touchdown and Keithshon Johnson had a 51-yard cutback touchdown run for the Eagles to wrap the fourth quarter and the game.
While Smith made some bigtime plays for the Rebels with three total touchdowns, the Eagles adjusted coming out of the halftime break and limited the big plays.
“Richton has a really good quarterback and it was hard for us to keep him bottled up early. He made a couple of throws off his scrambling ability and DBs can only stay with their guys for so long,” Jackson said. “He made some plays just off his mobility, but we got decent pass rush out of our guys up front — just have to finish when we get there. He slipped away from us a few times, but we’ll work on that in practice.”
East Marion will have a bye this Friday night before going on the road to take on Salem Sept. 22 to kick off the district schedule.
Jackson was glad he was able to get his young players some experience with a big lead in the second half and plans to use the bye week to clean up the Eagles overall play.
“(We have) a lot of kids that are young and haven’t played a whole lot. Some got to play tonight that don’t typically get to play, so that was a good thing. Hopefully, we can mature these kids on up and get ready for the district schedule,” he concluded. “We’re going to work on a lot of fundamentals this week and get back to the basics. We’ll get a little rejuvenated and freshened up for our district.”
Pictured Above: Devin Daniels scrambles from the pocket and scampers for a 24-yard touchdown. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
