MIDDLEBURG, Fla. – While it was senior night for the Middleburg Broncos, the visiting Jacksonville Episcopal Eagles spoiled the night with a 35-32 victory at Alan Powers Field.
While Episcopal (5-1) showed they could be a formidable foe come time for the Class 3A playoffs come next month, Middleburg (4-2) has shown they are day and night compared to the team that went 0-10.
ERSHOD JASEY HARD TO CONTAIN AT TIMES
For Episcopal’s Ershod Jasey, he was a force to bring down having multiple plays on the night that would go for big yardage for the Eagles.
While the overall stat line of 24 carries for 132 yards and a touchdown does not sound all that impressive, for Jasey most of his explosive plays would eventually be the cursor to set up a scoring drive for the Eagles.
For example, on the Eagles’ first drive of the game on the second play of the drive, Jasey broke free for 20 yards, which two plays later would set up a 34-yard touchdown run by Kirk Reed to put the Eagles up on the board first.
Jasey’s only touchdown of the game came eight seconds into the second quarter when he punched it in from 14 yards out after a personal foul was called on the Broncos on third down and four at the Middleburg 36.
BRONCOS ARE ON THE WAY UP
Despite it being the second loss of the season for Middleburg, there is a lot of positives to be talked about for the Broncos coming out of this game.
First, is the fact that Middleburg never gave up even when down as many as 15 points at the end of the third quarter. This is a night and day difference here where last year’s team experienced four shutouts along the way to the overall 0-10 season.
The second big thing that the Broncos are on the way is the fact four wins already with a chance to potentially get to have a non-losing or even a winning season is still very much a possibility with some winnable games left on the schedule. With four weeks of games left the goal is very much in reach.
Third, is the number of points the Broncos have scored this season as well as given up so far. Last year the Broncos scored only a mere 125 points across 10 games including the play-in playoff game with Escambia. That only averaged out to the team scoring 12.5 points per game last season overall. In that same season last year, the number of points given up was staggering at 376 points with an average of 37.6 points given up per game.
Now compared that to this year and what first-year head coach Ryan Wolfe has done, it is very much night and day. Through six games total the Broncos have scored 239 points, which is almost double the number of points scored last season with an average of 39.83 points per game. The number of points per game given up has decreased significantly with only 149 points given up for an average of 24.83 points per game in six games played.
MIKE MITCHELL IS A RISING STAR FOR THE BRONCOS
The Broncos have found a star in junior running back Mike Mitchell who picked up his first Division I FBS offer from the University of Alabama-Birmingham earlier in the season.
Mitchell who rushed for 134 yards on 12 carries and a touchdown was the one player that Episcopal head coach Marcus Wells mentioned that they tried to game plan around him to contain him and became hard to contain him at times during the game.
So far during the 2021 season, Mitchell is on pace for at least 1,500 to 1,700 yards rushing with four games remaining. Through six games, Mitchell has carried the ball for the Broncos 102 times for 1,048 yards and 14 touchdowns. averaging 174.7 yards and 2.3 touchdowns per game in six games.
PENALTIES AND PLAYOFF POSITIONING
While the Broncos faced the most penalties throughout the night compared to the few that Eagles got called on, that is more of a sign of growing as a team that has been looking for stability over the years and is now learning through mental mistakes compared to being a veteran playoff team.
However, with all that said, four weeks of games are left for both teams, and while Episcopal is very much on the hunt for a playoff spot in Class 3A-Region 1 which held an RPI last week of .618 last week which was second-best in Region 1.
For Middleburg, things are very much different in terms of where things go with the playoff picture. As of last week’s RPI rankings, Middleburg was ranked No. 13 out of 20 teams in Class 6A-Region 1. However, things can change if the Broncos win the remaining four games on the schedule including a big district showdown with Gainesville this coming week.
WHAT’S NEXT
Episcopal will have a short week as they travel to Jacksonville Andrew Jackson (4-3), who defeated Baldwin on Friday night, for a Thursday night tilt that will kick off at 7 p.m. Eastern. Middleburg will get on the road for an hour and a half trip down to Gainesville’s Citizens Field where they will take on Gainesville High (4-2), who lost to No. 23 Gainesville Bucholz on Thursday night, in a key District 6A-4 contest that will be key to either team’s playoff chances come next month. That game will kick off at 7 p.m. Eastern.
