Jackson Heights Football vs. ACCHS 2020

Jackson Heights High School’s varsity football team started the season with a 41-6 home win over visiting Atchison County Community High School, giving Co­bra Head Coach Caleb Wick and his team a boost of confi­dence going into homecoming activi­ties later this week.

“I thought it was a good starting point for us with everything that has gone on so far this year,” Coach Wick said. “We have a lot of work to do, but I am happy with the starting point.”

That starting point was led by Co­bra quarterback Jason Bosley, who scored five touchdowns on the night, four of which came on the ground as part of a 167-yard rushing total for the JHHS junior.

Monday was the first day that Jackson Heights was eligible to play varsity football following a 14-day team COVID-19 (coronavirus) quar­antine that caused the Cobras’ first two scheduled games for the 2020 season to be put on hold.

The Tigers saw a similar situation happen in recent days, but with the team they were scheduled to play last Friday — Pleasant Ridge, which got put into its own two-week quaran­tine. The Cobras were eligible to play starting on Monday, and Atchi­son County was happy to oblige.

“I want to thank (ACCHS) for giving us an opportunity to play a football game,” Coach Wick said of the Tigers, who claimed a big 42-0 vic­tory over Horton a week earlier to start the season.

The Cobras struck first in Mon­day’s game when Bosley ran a quar­terback sneak for 25 yards into the end zone, with a follow-up PAT kick from junior Ryan Schumann bring­ing the score to 7-0. The Tigers’ next drive was stopped on a Cobra inter­ception by junior Grant Amon, and Jackson Heights upped the score to 13-0 on a two-yard TD run from Bosley, followed by a failed conver­sion attempt.

The second quarter saw a Tiger drive interrupted by sophomore Ju­lian Butto’s “pick-six,” an intercep­tion returned 66 yards for a touch­down, followed by a 15-yard TD pass from Bosley to Amon on the next Cobra possession with a PAT kick, bringing the Cobras’ halftime score to 26-0.

“Jason played a good first game of the season,” Wick said of Bosley. “He was able to get to the open field and use his speed. I also thought he threw some good balls to receivers.”

Bosley scored another pair of touchdowns in the third quarter, one from four yards out with a successful two-point conversion from sopho­more Alex Browning and one from 37 yards out with a PAT kick from Schumann, while ACCHS got its only score on a six-yard TD run by sophomore Ty Crossland with a failed conversion attempt late in the fourth.

Wick said the Cobra ball carriers “ran hard all night long” and the de­fensive line was good in its first game of the year, but there is still plenty of work for the Cobras to do to be ready for the rest of the season, particularly with the quarantine set­ting the team back by two weeks.

“We aren’t going to get ahead of ourselves after one performance,” he said. “We need to keep focusing on getting better in each practice and see where the season takes us.”

In total, the Cobras posted 344 of­fensive yards, 295 of which were on the ground, while all but 45 of the Tigers’ 169 offensive yards were on the ground.

The Cobras lost one fumble dur­ing the game, but Amon, Butto and senior Dylan Thompson were able to pick off three Tiger passes during the game.

Penalties were low during the game, with the Cobras only penal­ized 10 yards on two flags while the Tigers were penalized five yards on a single flag early in the game.