Group effort at MSM

One week after not scoring a touchdown, the Kingfi sher offense got what it needed.

It came in the form of the Mount St. Mary defense last Friday as the Jackets scored seven touchdowns and racked up 472 yards of offense in a 50-13 road win.

That bumped them to 3-2 overall on the season and 1-1 in District 3A-1 games.

The district loss was 14-3 the previous week at Perkins in which the Jackets were kept out of the end zone.

Against the Rockets, KHS won the toss, elected to receive and scored with a four-minute drive to start the game.

The drive saw Jax Sternberger complete big third-down passes to Ethan Karcher and Cade Covalt to keep the chains moving. It ended with Dallen Barton’s 2-yard touchdown run at 8:01.

“We needed that, especially after last week,” said head coach Jeff Myers. “We wanted our offense to go out and set the tone early and get some confidence.”

The defense followed suit as Jake Reagan forced a fumble on Mount St. Mary’s first drive of the game as he stripped Joe Krug.

Ryker Long pounced on it to set up the Jackets at the Rocket 28-yard line.

The takeaway was a sign of things to come for the KHS defense.

All told, the Jackets forced and recovered three fumbles and had three interceptions.

“Making big plays like that doesn’t just boost the defense, but it helps the offense too,” Myers said. “And we took advantage of a lot of those opportunities.”

Including the first one as the Jackets made it 14-0 on Barton’s 7-yard run, which came on an option play.

It moved to 16-0 when KHS forced a punt and the Rockets’ punter eventually fumbled the ball out of the back of the end zone.

The special teams struck again when Mount St. Mary muffed a punt that Paytun Burnham jumped on for the Jackets.

After the Rockets put together their only real sustained drive of the game to pull within 16-7 with 6:40 to go in the half, KHS mounted an assault to put them away quickly.

Damian Haynes’ 44yard kickoff return set up KHS at the Mount St. Mary 27.

Senior Tristun Burnham made back-to-back catches on the ensuing drive, the second of which saw him lower his shoulder and bull his way into the end zone for a 17-yard score.

After a quick three-andout by the Rockets, Ethan Karcher found the sideline on a short pass from Sternberger. He turned on the jets, made one Rocket miss badly and scored from 69 yards out.

Sternberger picked off a Rocket pass with 3:00 left in the half. A few plays later, he threw a 31-yard TD to Paytun Burnham, who made an acrobatic catch to haul it in.

In a matter of 3:31 of game time, Kingfisher’s lead had gone from nine points to 30.

The playmaking still wasn’t done, but this time it was Sternberger on defense.

John Allison made a difficult catch on Mount St. Mary sideline and was able to shrug off Barton’s tackle.

What Allison saw was the Rocket end zone in front of him. What he didn’t see was Sternberger running him down.

Kingfisher’s senior not only saved the TD, but stripped Allison and recovered the fumble.

Sternberger still wasn’t done.

He picked off another pass to begin the second half, giving him three takeaways by himself.

That pick turned into another KHS score as Sternberger found Jake Reagan crossing the field for a 32yard touchdown.

The Jackets forced one more turnover - a Barton interception - and scored one more touchdown - a 1-yard run by senior Blake Hill - to end the game.

Sternberger played the best game of his career.

On offense, he was 20 of 27 for 307 yards and four touchdowns.

He added 32 rushing yards.

Defensively, he had three tackles, the two interceptions and the forced fumble and recovery.

“It’s tough to play much better than he did,” Myers said. “I know he was disappointed that the offense didn’t produce a lot the week before and he came out this week and really made sure it wasn’t going to happen again.”

Aaron Delatorre led the team with nine tackles.

Barton added six while Daniel Guerrero and Cade Cooper notched five apiece.

Mount St. Mary had just 171 yards of total offense.

Barton led the team with 61 rushing yards on 13 attempts. Hill gobbled up 41 yards on his six carries as KHS averaged 5.2 per carry.

Ten different Jackets caught at least one pass.

Paytun Burnham led the way with five for 53 yards.

Karcher led the team with 96 receiving yards. He was joined by Reagan, Covalt, Tristun Burnham, Jhett Birdwell and Santiago Ortega in grabbing two receptions each.

The downside for the Jackets was penalties.

Several KHS drives were slowed and some stalled out thanks to 15 yellow flags for 130 yards.

Most were holding calls. “We watched film and at least a handful of them were legitimate,” Myers said. “On some others, we weren’t so sure, but either way, we absolutely have to clean that up.”

KHS hosts Mannford on Friday in its first home game since Week 2.

Kickoff for the homecoming game is 7 p.m. The homecoming coronation will begin at 6:30 p.m.