Nease holds off Jackets again

PONTE VEDRA-It isn't St. Augustine vs Nease with out another amazing finish as for the fifth straight year the rivalry game came down to the closing minute.

Despite a seldom used Ted Stachitas, a Nease throwback trickery offense and St. Augustine overcoming seven turnovers, host Nease held off St. Augustine 17-15 in the annual showdown.

After getting injured in last week's 63-3 win over Ridgeview, Nease head coach Craig Howard wasn't even sure if Stachitas was available. A game time decision led to Howard chosing not to start Stachitas and backup Tyler Weir (who played nearly three quarters last week) to go with his third option.

"We had to come up with something special since we didn't know whether or not if Ted (Stachitas) was going to play or not," Nease head coach Craig Howard, "Hunter Bates came in an emergency situation while we also had several other guys go both ways like Riley Haynes, Jared McNaught  and many others."

"I felt this game was for our seniors, Hunter has played quarterback before and once we saw Ted wasn't 100% I decided to go with Hunter," Howard said. All week we had practiced that offense and we're planning on rotating Hunter and Tyler Weir, but once we saw Ted was able to go I decided to go with Hunter and Ted and not put a lot of pressure on the sophomore."

Howard also changed his offense during the week scrapping the spread for an old fashioned super offense (sort of like wedge meets a rugby scrum).   

"Don Markum a head coach out in Bloomingdale, California came up with that offense and set the national scoring record with 880 points in a single season", Howard said.

St. Augustine shook off seven tournovers yet still had themselves in position to win the game in the closing minutes.

Trailing 10-9 with less than seven minutes to go, Yellow Jackets quarterback Kiwan Jakes appeared to be driving his team toward the potential go ahead score driving inside the 25 before committing his teams seventh turnover while dropping back to pass, McNaught scooped up the loose ball and scrambled 62 yards to give Nease a 17-9 lead with 2:28 left.

Jakes settled down and gathered his team together and hit Devin Martin, Rashard Hall, Jarvis Jordan and Carlton Lewis on big plays to put the Jackets into scoring range again.

Jakes 15 yard pass to Lewis brought the Jackets to the 2 while Jakes scrambled 2 yards for a   score with 14 seconds remaining.

Down two, Jakes tried to hit Lewis on a fade route, Lewis appeared to have pulled the two point conversion in but Graham Bates stripped the ball out seeling the win for Nease.             
     
"This was another classic rivalry game,we have played six times in five years and all of them have come down to the wire," Howard said, "Give a lot of credit to St. Augustine credit their quarterback Kiwan Jakes made a lot of big third down plays and their kicker Caleb Sturgis made three huge field goals but our guys hung in there and made the fans get their money's worth."

After fumbling on the first play from scrimmage, Nease took advantage of the Jackets turnover as Hunter scored from 5 yards out to give Nease a 7-0 lead.

St. Augustine answered as Hall picked off a Bates pass at midfield and converted the turnover into a Caleb Sturgis 42 yard field goal cutting the lead to 7-3.

Sturgis tacked on a pair of field goals (40, 45) to give St. Augustine their first lead of the game at 9-7 with 3:14 left in the half.

Graham Bates picked off Jakes at the ten and returned it 65 yards to set up Nease at the 29 with 1:33 left however Hunter's pass intended for a wide open Andrew Barnes was picked off by Hall with 41.6 left ending the half.

Another Jackets turnover by Lewis on a punt return gave Nease excellent field position which they converted as Andrew Barker nailed a 29-yard field goal giving Nease a 10-9 lead with 5:28 left in the third.

Notes: Among the former alumni in attendance from both teams were James Wilson (Florida), Tim Tebow (Florida), Brandon James (Florida), Quinton Rickerson (Florida), Daunte Owens (FIU) and Hunter Haynes (Wake Forest).