(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
It may not have been a normal week of preparation, but the results spoke for themselves.
A day prior to the usual Friday Night Lights action, Ankeny Centennial was on a bus to Mediacom Stadium in Des Moines for some Thursday night football against Des Moines Lincoln.
Behind another four-touchdown performance from star running back JJ Morgan, a three-touchdown passing night from sophomore quarterback Brekken Miller and a lights-out defensive showing, the Jaguars raised their record to 2-1 with a 47-6 victory.
“It was a short week, but we tried to maintain everything we do throughout the course of the week,” said Centennial co-head coach Ryan Pezzetti. “We lifted three times, we had our practices, and we did have one practice cut short with the week. Our kids responded pretty well, and now it’s time to bounce right forward to Ankeny.”
In a typical week, Thursday would be used as the final preparation for Friday night’s opponent.
The Jaguars would be up at five in the morning for practice, get some game film in during the afternoon and end the day with some team bonding with a team meal to get the morale up going into Friday.
Despite the shortened week, Centennial didn’t miss a beat against the Railsplitters (1-2).
“It was pretty weird (playing on Thursday),” Morgan said. “But any day is a good day for football, so I just came out and performed.”
Even going into the week, Morgan was the hot hand for Centennial as the senior continued to make the most of his opportunity to be a focal point of the offense.
Morgan has been vying for this opportunity after spending the last couple of seasons behind Elijah Porter, a redshirt freshman running back at Northern Illinois, and Braeden Jackson, now a preferred walk-on running back at Iowa.
Now, it’s Morgan’s time to shine and he’s been running with it figuratively and literally.
Morgan was coming off a four-touchdown game in Centennial’s win over Linn-Mar (Marion) a week ago, and he tallied four more scores to fuel the Jaguars’ rout over Lincoln. He’s got eight touchdowns in the last eight quarters and nine on the season.
“We’ve always known that JJ is a special player and that this was his year to shine,” Pezzetti said. “I hate to say you sit behind guys, but when you have Elijah Porter at Northern Illinois and Braeden Jackson at Iowa, he’s the next one in line.”
Three of Morgan’s four touchdowns came on the ground with the first coming after he sliced through the Railsplitters for a 53-yard scamper to the end zone in the first quarter. He punched the ball in from 6 yards out in the second quarter and from a yard out on the offense’s first drive of the second half.
Morgan also scored on a 22-yard pass from Miller in the second quarter, when he caught a short toss and did most of the work himself.
“It feels great,” Morgan said. “Since I was a freshman, I got pulled up and I never really got the chance to showcase my skills. Last year I didn’t get to play from Week 5 and on, so this year I’m coming for it all.”
Outside of Morgan, the Jaguars saw some flashes of Miller’s potential. He helped open up the game with a bang.
Miller fired a deep ball to senior tight end Cameron Meiners on just the third play of the game, and Meiners split past some defenders to house it for a 68-yard touchdown.
He later found Morgan for the score in the second quarter before coming back in the third period and finding Cade Newman in the end zone for a 9-yard touchdown pass on the first play after the Jaguars’ defense recovered a fumble.
“Brekken got the nod tonight, and he made the most of it,” Pezzetti said. “He made some mistakes that he’ll learn from going forward, and his best football is still in front of him–no question about it.”
The Centennial defense gave the Railsplitters little to work with all game after Lincoln tried running a similar offense that got shut down repeatedly.
Fresh off the Meiners touchdown, Brody Prill made a huge hit on 4th-and-11 to force a turnover on downs, which led into Morgan’s first touchdown run. The defense also forced a second turnover on downs in the second quarter.
But no defensive play was bigger than how Rilynd Pezzetti started the second half.
The Centennial junior defensive back intercepted Lincoln’s Dominic Severino right before halftime, and he came right back out of the break to immediately intercept Severino for a second time and return it for a pick-six.
“(The defense) is bend, don’t break,” Pezzetti said. “We’ve got to eliminate those long drives that teams are getting on us. That’s happened three games in a row, but they’re getting there. If they just sharpen it up a bit, they’ll go from good to great in a hurry.”
One of the last stands for some of the starters came in the third quarter when Severino coughed up the ball on a fourth down, which was recovered by the Jaguars inside Lincoln’s 10-yard line and set up Miller for his touchdown to Newman.
The Railsplitters were able to break up the shutout in the fourth quarter after driving against the backup units for Centennial. Daymonee Wesley was able to punch the ball in from a yard out to put Lincoln on the board for the first time.
The Jaguars will now get some extra time to prepare for their upcoming crosstown rivalry game with Ankeny next Friday at Ankeny Stadium. The Hawks (1-1) will host Des Moines Roosevelt on Friday before turning their attention to Centennial.
Just like the Jaguars, Ankeny started off the year with a loss after falling to Waukee Northwest by one point before turning things around with a 26-13 win at Waukee.
“We just have to keep executing,” Morgan said. “There’s nothing better than executing the plays that you worked so hard throughout the week to come get. Once you execute, it makes you feel a lot better.”
