Central High’s Jaiden Connors has the Lancers Back to Winning

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Anthony Franklin | September 18, 2024

Jaiden Connors is a 5-11 160lb WR/CB for Central High School in Philadelphia. He’s a returning starter and last Friday as Central hosted Olney he showed why he’s a top two-way prospect in the public league. Jaiden would score 2 receiving touchdowns in Centrals 44-6 win over Olney Charter while also recording 3 pass breakups including what should have been a 50-yard pick 6 but he bobbled and lost control of the ball. With the victory the Lancers moved to 3-1 on the season including 2-0 within the Liberty Division. They’ll travel to Inter-Ac member Germantown Academy this weekend for their last non-league game of the season and then the remaining schedule will be division games. In 2023 Central went 2-8 but 3 of their losses were games in which they held first half leads and couldn’t close the games out (Boys Latin, George Washington & West Philadelphia).

The 2024 season thus far they’ve learned how to close teams out and keep their foot on the gas to not blow leads. Outside of their loss to Inter-Ac Springside Chestnut Hill Academy they’ve handled their opponents easily this season. Jaiden has played a huge part in their success stepping into more of a leadership role. When asked how the team prepared for Olney he stated, “We stayed focused throughout the week & we made every practice feel like a game with competing and it translated over to game day.” With regards to his scores on the day he noted that on the first touchdown “Both me and my teammate were open, but my quarterback Aiden Mcelhatton decided to throw it to me. As I caught it, I got wrapped and attempted to be tackled, but I was able to break the tackle and then it became a 1 on 1 with me and the safety and I was unable to outrun him for the touchdown.

Defensively he shut down Olney’s receivers and noted that “I take film seriously so when I it comes to realizing a formation & how receivers run their route, I’m always able to read & predict what they are going to do, and it leads to big stops”. When discussing last season’s struggles Jaiden mentioned “Each year I feel like we can make it very far and to the championship, but we fall short to finish out the close games. This year we’ve been working on that very well and are prepared for all situations, so we are looking forward to big wins. This year we are fighting hard early and fighting to the end. We aren’t letting up & getting comfortable. We are hungry & not satisfied until the end”.

An Uptown/Olney resident Jaiden lives not far from Central. He’s yet to receive a college offer or interest but says he’s waiting for any opportunity and will take any opportunity he can to showcase his talents.

Lastly, he expressed his thanks and gratitude to his head coach Richard Drayton for putting him in situations to show what he can do and believing in him to make plays.

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