Thomas Jefferson’s defense dominates for second straight week @TJHSJaguars @wjhsd @sflionssports

Tagged under: District 7, Gameday Hub, News

Andrew Schaffer | September 11, 2021

For the second straight week the story was Thomas Jefferson’s defense shutting down a potent offense. Last week it was Gateway and this week it was a 27-0 victory over South Fayette. “It all starts up front, our D-Line played really well” said Coach Cherpak.

South Fayette got the ball to start the game and they went 3 and out. Thomas Jefferson started their first drive with good field position at their own 49 yard line. After 3 straight runs they were at South Fayette’s 17 yard line. A couple plays later Elias Lippincott scored on a 2 yard run with 7:30 in the first quarter.

South Fayette once again got the ball and once again went 3 and out. Thomas Jefferson started their second drive at their own 40 yard line. This drive had a lot of stuff going on including several penalties with the majority of them being holding calls, one of which erased what would’ve been a 60 yard touchdown run. Despite all of that it didn’t slow down Thomas Jefferson. They got into South Fayette territory and got a little help with a pass interference call. A couple plays later, Thomas Jefferson extended their lead on a 2 yard run by Joseph Lekse. That made the score 14-0. The drive was 13 plays and lasted for over a half quarter.

South Fayette desperately needed to get something going on this drive and it was off to a good start, a big pass got them out to midfield and into Thomas Jefferson territory but once they got inside the 40 yard line, Thomas Jefferson’s defense stood up. South Fayette did have some big plays in this game but simply couldn’t finish drives. “We gave up some big plays, and even some field position, and then we came right back and made a big play, either a sack, or something else to make them lose yardage, that was huge for us, it really was, to be able to hold them out of the end zone” said Coach Cherpak.

Thomas Jefferson had the ball once again and unlike their last scoring drive this one didn’t last long. On the first play Joseph Lekse completed a pass to McClain Flinn for an 80 yard touchdown pass. Lekse again was a big factor in the game for Thomas Jefferson he was 4 of 8 passing for 145 yards and also had 67 yards rushing. “He’s a gamer, he’s a winner, and that’s his biggest asset, he makes plays when he needs to” said Coach Cherpak. That made the score 20-0 Thomas Jefferson and that was also the score at halftime.

Thomas Jefferson got the ball to start the second half. The drive started at their own 20. The drive didn’t go far but it took up a lot of time on the clock. The drive was nearly half of the third quarter. “Eat up the clock, drive, be physical, wear them down, put the ball in the end zone, that’s exactly what we want to do” said Coach Cherpak.

The second half was uneventful for the most part. Midway through the fourth quarter South Fayette went for it on fourth down and didn’t convert. After that Thomas Jefferson added the explanation point on a second touchdown run by Elias Lippincott this one being a 5 yard run. He also had a good game rushing for 54 yards.

The final score was 27-0 and Thomas Jefferson improves to 2-0 on the season and even more impressively came against 2 5A teams. “I told the kids, those are the best 2 first games we’ve ever played, in terms of competition, and how we responded” said Coach Cherpak. Next week Thomas Jefferson starts the conference portion of their schedule when they host Trinity.

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