McKinley falls to East Ascension

On this senior night, McKinley matched up with East Ascension for McKinley’s final home game of the season. East Ascension started with the ball and elected to come out the gates passing. After a 40 yard pass to Allen Stark, the Spartans were able to get in the end zone on an eight yard run from Jacorey Johnson. On the ensuing kickoff, McKinley was unable to control possession resulting in a fumble recovery for the Spartans.

Starting from McKinley’s 25, East Ascension wasted no time scoring in just five plays on another 8 yard run from Jacorey Johnson. Now down 14-0, McKinley was starting its first drive of the game. However, they were not able to get anything going, being forced to punt after three plays. After a solid punt, the Spartans were starting their drive from their own 39. On the second play of this drive, Jacorey Johnson was able to find some space on the outside, gaining 30 yards to put the Spartan offense in enemy territory. However, the McKinley defense stepped up, forcing a couple incompletions and a sack from Royce Handy which resulted in only a field goal for East Ascension this time around. On McKinley’s ensuing drive, they were looking at 3rd and 10 when a pass from Darrius Price was intercepted by Kendrick Broussard Jr. The ball now on McKinley’s 21 yard line, the Spartan offense only needed one play for Jacorey Johnson to get his third touchdown of the game.

The score now 24-0, McKinley was looking to get on the board. However, East Ascension’s strong defense was not having it, forcing McKinley to punt after only one first down. After a bobbled snap resulted in East Ascension regaining possession at the line of scrimmage, the Spartans were starting their drive from McKinley’s 38 yard line. Once again, East Ascension only needed one play to score on a sweep from none other than Jacorey Johnson. On the ensuing possession from McKinley, they could not find any space and were forced into another three and out. The Spartans, starting with the ball at midfield, were able to put together a solid seven play drive which ended in a touchdown making the score 38-0 going into halftime.

McKinley started with the ball after halftime. Still unable to get any kind of offense rolling, they were forced to punt once again. East Ascension started their next drive from their own 33 yard line. On the first play of this drive, they put the ball in the hands of the junior Zhavier Jupiter. Making two defenders miss, Jupiter scored on a 77 yard run to make the score 45-0 in the third quarter. On McKinley’s next drive, they elected to go with Ty’Xavier Washington at quarterback to try and give their offense some life. This change proved to ignite the McKinley offense. On the first play of their drive, Washington broke open a 20 yard run which was followed by a late hit. After this big gain, McKinley was set up on the Spartan’s 35 yard line. Looking to get into the end zone, Washington threw up a pass to Tyler Johnson however, a pass interference call gave McKinley a new set of downs starting from the 16 yard line. After a run from Jeremiah Allen which got the offense to the goal line, a pass to Kentrell Jones put McKinley on the board to end the game.