WARREN — In the number of plays it took Watson Chapel to sustain its longest drive, Warren’s Aaron Davis ran for three touchdowns.
Davis broke a 69-yard run on Warren’s first offensive play, scored on a 1-yard carry and rushed 29 yards, all on the Lumberjacks’ first three drives, setting the tone for a 42-0 win over the Wildcats on Friday night at Jim Hurley Stadium.
Credit the senior’s family for giving him a boost.
“All my family came to show out tonight,” Davis said.
Davis had 114 yards on 5 carries, all before halftime. And while longtime Coach Bo Hembree saw it firsthand, he didn’t realize the quick start the 6-foot-1, 170-pound speedster had.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“He’s very explosive,” Hembree said. “We’ve got to get him catching the football better, but he had one of fastest 4A times in the 100 (meters) during track season. He’s a big-play guy for us, and he can definitely hit a home run once he gets the ball in his hands.”
As a team, Warren (2-1) amassed 319 yards of offense, including 154 yards rushing and 97 yards on Jackson Denton’s 4-of-6 passing. Backup Logan Gavin threw for 68 yards on 5-of-7 passing.
Josiah Steen pulled down a 29-yard scoring reception and Tayshawn Edwards scored on a 39-yard haul, both in the second quarter. Warren ran 18 plays in the first half to Watson Chapel’s 38.
Warren left very little to chance in its non-conference finale, setting a season high for points in the first half alone. The 42-0 halftime lead also enacted a running clock for the second half.
“We talked a lot about that the last two weeks, really, because we were up 18-7 on Greenbrier,” Hembree said, looking back on Warren’s season-opening 57-32 loss at home. “… Tonight, I thought even when something bad happens, just play the next play. That takes experience doing it, and hopefully we get better at it each week.”
The Lumberjacks took many lessons from that first game and responded with a 28-14 win over White Hall, jumping to a 28-0 lead at one point.
“I would say that Greenbrier game, it showed that we can’t stop playing,” Davis said. “You’ve got to keep playing.”
The message to the Wildcats (0-3) their head coach gave them was three-fold.
“The message is stay together. The message is work harder. The message is do the right things,” Steven Heard said. “Doing the right things doesn’t start in practice. Do the right things when you wake up in the morning, when you go to bed at night. You cannot do what you want to do or the wrong things all day and expect to turn the switch on when the game counts. It doesn’t work like that.”
Sophomore Kaystean Jacobs of Warren ended Watson Chapel’s only third-quarter drive after intercepting a deflected pass. Malachi Rayford, who completed 13 of 26 passes for 110 yards, had thrown 3 straight completions to senior classmate Jayden Wilkerson for 37 yards until the pick.
Warren’s Xavion Miller stripped J’Kenzye Miller at the end of a 21-yard reception in the fourth quarter and made a short return. Watson Chapel’s Demontae Lawrence recovered a fumble after a bad Warren snap late in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats totaled 188 yards. Their longest drive was 11 plays and went from their own 30 to the Lumberjacks’ 34 before two penalties sent them back 15 yards early in the second quarter.
Both teams will catch a break next weekend before starting conference play. DeWitt will host Warren to open Conference 4A-8, and Watson Chapel will welcome Robinson in the 5A-South Conference.
The Wildcats will spend that time getting back to fundamentals, Heard indicated.
“Running and blocking, running, blocking and tackling. That’s what we get back to,” he said.