MADISON — Madison Central kicker Ross Beavers’ potential game-winning 58-yard field goal came up short as the Chargers held on to knock off the Jaguars 16-14 in the Region 2-7A opener at Jaguar Stadium on Friday night.
“Can’t say enough about what a great job we did defensively all night,” said Oxford coach Chris Cutcliffe. “We battled. Thought we did a great job in the run game, in the second half got a lot of pressure on the quarterback and prevented some big plays in the pass game.”
After Oxford was forced to punt with 1:40 left in the fourth quarter, Madison Central started at their own 20 and ran nine plays to get to the Oxford 41-yard line with two seconds left to set up the potential game-winning field goal that would fall short.
“We had two timeouts and would’ve like to have gotten the ball closer, but we were left in a situation with a kicker that has the leg to get it there and we gave him a chance, and he just missed to the left,” said Madison Central coach Toby Collums. “Oxford is a good football team, and we made too many mistakes tonight. We got to just continue to keep getting better.”
Oxford got on the board first to take a 6-0 lead as Demar Jamerson powered into the end zone from three yards with 1:54 left in the first quarter.
Madison Central responded to take a 7-6 lead as Tripp Smith hit Tylan Hutchins on a 73-yard touchdown pass with 19 seconds left in the first half.
Jamerson gave the Chargers the lead again with a 1-yard touchdown run with 9:48 left in second quarter.
Smith found Eli Dampier on a 48-yard touchdown pass with 6:10 left in the first half to give Madison Central a 14-13 lead.
Michael Thompson hit a 42-yard field goal with 18 seconds left in the third quarter to give Oxford the 16-14 lead.
Jamerson finished with 102 yards rushing on 23 carries with two touchdowns for Oxford (5-1, 1-0 Region 2-7A).
“It was great. I ran the ball well and the offensive line did a great job blocking,” Jamerson said. “I ran hard, found the gaps, scored a couple touchdowns and did what I had to do to help win the game.”
Drew Dean finished 12-of-26 passing for 161 yards for the Chargers. The Oxford defense held the Jaguars to 58 yards of offense in the second half.
“We practice as much situational football as possible so on the last drive we just fell back on our training. In different scenarios our guys are ready. We ran a lot of clock on offense on our last drive but didn’t finish so we had to trust our defense to get it done and they did,” Cutcliffe said. “Offensively we hit a few explosive plays down the field and we did a great job of running the ball. Proud of the guys getting the job done on the road.”
Smith finished with 203 yards passing and two touchdowns for Madison Central (3-3, 0-1).