The last time the Jackson Indians lost a Conference game was all the way back in 2017, and… spoiler alert, it was to the Poplar Bluff Mules. The past is the past though, and the Indians made the Mules very aware of that on Friday night with a dominant 35-7 victory.
After starting out 0-2 for the first time since 2015, the Indians have flipped the script on this season with back-to-back wins win the last two weeks. They used four touchdowns from stud running back Tony Williams and rode that train to win their 19th consecutive Conference game. Now back at .500 on the season the Indians look primed to get back to embarrassing every opponent.
Surprisingly, the first quarter was a scoreless affair, but the Indians were just priming the pump as a precursor to the noise they were about to deliver. Williams took the game into his hands at the beginning of the second quarter after a clutch fumble return from Fisher Stevens, and quickly put the Indians on the board with a two-yard rush.
He didn’t stop there though, as he busted in another one from the 1-yard line just a handful of minutes later. That would be the final scoring play of the half, and the Indians were looking down with a deep lens at the 14-0 score over the Mules.
Then the second half opened up with the Williams Show once again, as the bruising running back punched in his third TD of the game with a five-yard run. The Indians found themselves with a 21-0 lead, and they wouldn’t look back. Things were going swimmingly for the Tribe, just like Head Coach Brent Eckley drew it up.
In the fourth quarter it seemed like the reel was stuck in a loop, as Williams banged home his fourth TD of the game from one yard out to make it 28-0. The Mules did counter though with a 78-yard kickoff return, but that was the most they could muster on the scoreboard for the entire game. Then, Adrian Fox came in on a lark and ripped off his only pass of the game for a seven-yard TD to JP Sauer to make the score 35-7.
That would cap the scoring for the night, and give the Indians back-to-back wins to erase their deficit and turn their season around with a 2-2 record. Thankfully, Williams was involved, as the Senior running back toted the rock 36 times for a whopping 169 yards and four TDs. He had help in the ground game though. The co-QB Fox used his legs mostly in this one, and ran 12 times for 112 yards while also throwing for the only touchdown of the game.
Isaiah Davis led the receiving crew with five grabs for 55 yards, and Sauer had the only TD through the air. That being said, this was a complete game by the Indians. They out-gained the Mules 358-167 yardage-wise and snuffed out any semblance of a Poplar Bluff rally to bring home the win.
The Indians are back and rolling again and will look to keep the line moving next week as they travel to meet the Cape Central Tigers to try and move above the .500 mark for the first time this season. Cape has an impressive offense, so this should be a quality test of Jackson’s metal.
