September 26, 2015
Kelly pulls away from Charleston 48-18 for second straight win
Kelly senior Maurice Davis rushed for 142 yards on seven totes, scoring twice on the ground. His first carry of the game was a 43-yard touchdown run that gave Kelly a lead they would never relinquish.
By Chris Pobst - Standard Democrat
sports@standard-democrat.com
BENTON -- Senior Maurice Davis simply can't wait to get the ball in his hands.
He returns punts and kickoffs, is Kelly's No. 1 receiver and recently began lining up in the backfield. He's become one of the area's most dangerous all-purpose players.
"I love it," Davis said. "I get chills down my back. I can't wait to get the ball and just make something happen."
Davis put all of his skills on display Friday finding the endzone three times and returning a punt for a touchdown during Kelly's 48-18 win over Charleston at Kelly High School.
Davis averaged 19 yards a touch after seven carries on the ground and one catch. His punt return went for 71 yards as well.
The anticipation that Davis feels when a kick comes his direction is mirrored by his head coach, who knows just how explosive the 6-0, 170-pound Class 2 track champion can be.
"Our fingers are always crossed because Maurice can take something that looks bad and make it look good pretty quick," Kelly coach Lance Powers said. "What a talent. God gifted him with that and it's fun for me to watch. I don't know how many of those I'll get, but it's fun to watch that's for sure."
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Davis rushed for 142 yards on seven totes, scoring twice on the ground. His first carry of the game was a 43-yard touchdown run that gave Kelly a lead they would never relinquish.
The Hawks rushed for 379 yards as a team with Matthew Burford getting the bulk of those carries. The senior carried the ball 23 times for 131 yards. Aaron Graham added 41 yards on seven touches and Nathan Vicenzi had seven carries for 38 yards.
It's exactly the production Kelly needed after starting the year 0-4. Since then, they've won their last two games outscoring both Central (Arnold) and Charleston 89-18.
"That's what we need," Powers said. "We brought out a few different looks which were some things we thought would work well against Charleston. We moved Graham in the backfield and we thought that would help us a lot this week. He did a great job blocking."
The final score was a bit lopsided, but it took a giant second half for Kelly (2-4) to get there.
The score was tied 6-6 after the first quarter, then Kelly put two in the endzone -- a three-yard run by Burford and Davis' 71-yard punt return -- to give the Hawks a 20-6 lead.
Charleston staged back to back drives that pulled them within two points before the half. Tennerious Ewing, who ran 19 times for 96 yards, finished an 11-play drive with a 7-yard run to cut Kelly's advantage to eight with 2:12 remaining in the half.
After a short kickoff to try and avoid Davis was recovered by Charleston, the Bluejays hit paydirt again when Q'narious Anderson scored his second rushing touchdown of the game with a 33-yard scamper.
Charleston trailed Kelly 20-18 after the first half, which is their closest halftime deficit since tying with Scott City during the first round of the Class 2, District 1 tournament in 2013.
"We go out to try and win every ball game and we wanted this one bad," Charleston head coach Brett Blackman said. "We talked about how we're at the middle part of the season and we want to rewrite this last part of the season. That's what we tried to gameplan for. We're not giving up by any means. We're not going to give up and we're going to keep trying to win football games."
Charleston's second quarter was a sign of life for the struggling football program, who lost its 17th game in a row. Tough runs by Jeremy Tucker and Ewing mixed with gashes by Anderson led to 162 yards of offense during Charleston's four drives in the second quarter.
"I thought that we showed we're a pretty good football team there in the second quarter," Blackman said. "We just couldn't get them going after that and that ultimately falls on me."
Two-hundred and forty seven of Charleston's 334 total yards were amassed in the first half.
"We had some kids play hard and did some things to put us in a position to be successful," said Blackman. "We went into the game trying to use our spread formations then we hopped into our tight formations and the kids really responded to that. We thought we were being really physical and were doing some good things. Jeremy had a good night running the ball. Q'narious had a good night and Tennerious did too. We have to keep in mind we're playing five freshman up front. We're going to have to put some things together and try to get better."
With a vigor rarely seen this season, Charleston stormed into the break with hope after closing a once 14-point gap to just two points.
But as soon as Kelly opened the second half by receiving the opening kickoff, Davis scored on the fourth play of the third quarter to push Kelly's lead up to nine points. Charleston punted on its next two drives while Kelly marched down the field and scored three straight times.
Burford rumbled in from one yard for a 34-18 lead, then after an interception by Davis, Jacob Black took his first and only carry of the night 27 yards for a 41-18 lead. Burford capped his three touchdown night with another short run after Charleston turned the ball over on downs with 6:13 remaining in the game.
Charleston punted twice, turned the ball over on downs twice and was picked off in each of its five drives in the second half.
"If I knew, we'd try to fix it," Blackman said. "It goes back to us not being able to sustain anything. I don't know if its necessarily what Kelly did or what we did to ourselves."
After reeling from a second quarter dominated by Charleston, Powers simply reminded his team in the locker room to execute.
"We talked about how hungry Charleston must be to get that win and we didn't want to give them any opportunity to come through that door," Kelly coach Lance Powers said. "The first half we let them back in it. We went into halftime and told them, 'We're okay. we just have to keep executing and we can't let up.' They took it to heart and came out here and performed."
Kelly held Charleston to 78 yards of offense in the second half.
"It starts with the way our defense has been playing," Powers said. "With coach (Ryan) Adams and coach (Tim) McGuire, they've game planned these last two weeks and that keeps us in the ball game. That allows our offense to do what it does because we're getting short fields and we're keeping the offense on the field. From Week 1 to where we're at now, I've said it before the season, we're just looking to get better every week and that's what the boys are doing."
After surviving Charleston push, Kelly scored 28 unanswered points to seal the win.
"We had to fight back from a lot of adversity," Davis said. "We made a lot of mistakes the first half. We came out in the second half just hungry and fixed everything we done out there. We scored 28 unanswered so it was a great team win."
Anderson led Charleston's rushing attack with 122 yards on six carries. The freshman scored the Bluejays' first touchdown of the game breaking free for an 86-yard run to tie the game at 6-all.
Kelly totaled 434 yards with 379 of those coming on the ground. Quarterback Kyle Fitzgerald threw for 55 yards on 4 of 8 passing.
"I see us as a hungry team," Davis said. "We've got Caruthersville next week and they're a great team. We'll go out and play as hard as we can and hope we can get the win."
Charleston 6 12 0 0 -- 18
Kelly 6 14 7 21 -- 48
First quarter
K -- Maurice Davis 43 run (kick failed), 10:05
C -- Q'narious Anderson 86 run (run failed), 6:12
Second quarter
K -- Matthew Burford 3 run (Burford run), 11:58
K -- Maurice Davis 71 punt return (kick failed), 10:21
C -- Tennerious Ewing 7 run (run failed), 2:12
C -- Q'narious Anderson 33 run (run failed), 1:06
Third quarter
K -- Maurice Davis 29 run (Aaron Graham kick), 10:21
Fourth quarter
K -- Matthew Burford 1 run (Graham kick), 11:27
K -- Jacob Black 27 run (Graham kick), 9:26
K -- Matthew Burford 5 run (Graham kick), 5:15
TEAM STATISTICS
C K
First downs 10 14
Total yards 334 434
Rushes-yards 49-315 46-379
Passing yards 19 55
Comp.-Att.-Int. 2-7-1 4-8-0
Fumbles-lost 3-1 2-1
Penalties-yards 6-30 8-55
Turnovers 1 2
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing -- Charleston, Tennerious Ewing 19-96, Q'nariuos Anderson 6-122, Jeremy Tucker 20-121, Terrance Clemons 2-(-4), James Wright 1-(-5), Lee Thomas Moody 1-(-15). Kelly, Nathan Vicenzi 7-38, Matthew Burford 23-131, Maurice Davis 7-142, Aaron Graham 5-41, Kyle Fitzgerald 2-0, Jeremiah Bain 1-0, Jacob Black 1-27.
Passing -- Charleston, Lee Thomas Moody 1-4-0 17, Tennerious Ewing 1-3-1 2. Kelly, Kyle Fitzgerald 4-8-0 55.
Receiving -- Charleston, Demarcus Sharp 1-2, Braxton Housman 1-17. Kelly, Skylar Lemons 1-22, Maurice Davis 1-15, Aaron Graham 1-11, Nathan Vicenzi 1-7.
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