By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director
CENTRE – Jacob Cornejo admitted he had a few butterflies before the Cherokee County Warriors’ first-round high school football playoff game against the Corner Yellow Jackets Friday night.
It didn’t take long for those butterflies to subside.
Cornejo scored on the Warriors’ first drive of the game. By night’s end, he accumulated 372 yards on 20 carries and six touchdowns – including a 99-yard burst in the fourth quarter to put the exclamation point on Cherokee County’s 47-10 victory.
“This is the best game by far I’ve had, and I owe the credit to my O-line,” Cornejo said. “The line was doing phenomenal for me and everybody else, and I’m really grateful for that. Everybody had their minds right. We all connected. We were locked in and came out and did what we do best.”
“He had a good night,” Warrior head coach Jacob Kelley said. “We felt pretty good that the running game would be there. We’ve had nights where our offensive line has really been clearing the way. Early on we felt good about what we were doing.”
The win propels the Warriors (9-2) to next Friday’s second round, where they will host West Morgan (10-1). The Rebels defeated Westminster Christian 27-7 in other first-round playoff action on Friday night.
After the Warrior defense forced the Yellow Jackets (8-3) to punt on their opening drive, Cornejo capped a 9-play, 75-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run. The extra point was blocked, keeping the score at 6-0.
Corner capitalized on a Cade Hopper interception later in the quarter for its first points. Johannes Rolland connected on a 33-yard field goal to cut the Warrior lead in half at 6-3 with 2:10 remaining in the opening quarter.
Cornejo extended the Warrior lead with his second touchdown of the night on a 2-yard run early in the second quarter. He later added scoring runs of 57 and 58 yards to give Cherokee County a 27-3 advantage at halftime.
Cornejo picked up where he left off in the first half in the Warriors’ heavy package. He and Jack Amos alternated runs on a 6-play 61-yard drive, capped off with his 28-yard touchdown run. Will Frampton’s point after provided the Warriors a 34-3 lead with 9:14 remaining in the third quarter.
Corner finally scored its first touchdown of the game on a 3-yard run by Gavin Brown. Brown’s touchdown capped a 14-play, 70-yard drive, and it made the score 34-10 after three quarters.
Amos added a 16-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter to push the Warrior lead to 40-10. Corner once again put together a substantial drive. They marched 72 yards in 14 plays, but on a fourth-and-goal from the Warrior 1-yard line, Cherokee County’s defense denied Brown another touchdown.
That set the stage for Cornejo’s longest scoring run of the game.
“The defense did a great job getting a stop down there,” Kelley said. “I didn’t feel real comfortable putting our JV offense on the 1, so it turned out to be fortunate enough Jacob got loose around the end. He had a great night. The offensive line did a great job. I thought the defense played well. That’s a big-time scoring offense that we went up against. They have a great tailback, but we did a good job of preventing the big plays from them.”
Brown led Corner’s ground attack with 64 yards on 22 carries. Quarterback Landon Peterson connected on 13-of-29 passes for 121 yards.
Tae Diamond added 91 yards on 13 carries for the Warriors. Hopper, returning from a right leg injury suffered three weeks ago, was 2-of-4 passing for 30 yards. He also ran for 20 yards on six carries. Amos had 32 yards on five second-half carries. Jeb Crane had an interception on defense.
“Having Cade back, I thought he did a great job of getting us in the right plays and just managing what we needed to do,” Kelley said. “The physicality was there. The execution was there. Right now we’ve just got to focus on the things that are getting us beat, learn to fix those and eliminate those if we want to make a deep run.
“Right now we’re playing pretty good at home. We’re undefeated this season. The only loss (since the home turf was installed last year) was against Vigor last season. When we’ve got an environment like this, a big crowd, it’s an extremely difficult place to play. We’d definitely rather be here than anywhere else. We need round two to be as packed as it was tonight for the next one. They’re only going to get bigger and better.”
