Jayton finds ways to win

Nothing has come easy for this Jaybird team so far this season. Thursday night would be no different.

Battling the injury bug, the Jaybirds would field a team of 13 players—8 of them freshmen who would be asked to step up and find a way. Jayton did just that, and defeated the Silverton Owls 34–27 Sept. 22.

After the game head coach Josh Stanaland commented, “Just another week, another quality opponent. Another week where our kids found a way. We talked about that in the pregame. We know we’re beat up right now, and we know that we don’t have our (running) backs and we lost another good kid (WR/DE Caleb Beck) at halftime.”

Stanaland continued, “You know it’s not going to look like we normally want it to look, but these kids are finding a way. It’s all we can ask of them, is to compete and to find a way to win.” There’s no better way to describe the victory on Thursday night.

It was a defensive battle to be sure, with enough big plays sprinkled in to “find a way” to win the game. You could look to Colt Gentry’s 50-yard interception return to the 1-yard line in the first quarter, which set up the first of two Jayce Rivera touchdowns. Or you could look at Bode Ham breaking the first run of the second half to go 56 yards for the score.

You might be tempted to talk about Sean Stanaland and his 62-yard quarterback keeper to end the 3rd quarter.

You could reference Jarret Herzog’s 4th down pass breakup on Silverton’s final offensive possession, or Stanaland’s 40yard run backwards at the end of regulation to purposely run off enough clock to keep from giving the ball back to the Owls. They weren’t common plays, and some were even a bit unorthodox, but Jayton found a way to win. The Jaybirds hope to find a way one more time this Friday night as they host the Spur Bulldogs.