Matthew Minsk
Picking up from where they left off in the season opener, AJA raced out to a quick 13-0 lead against Furtah Prep in the first game of their Thursday doubleheader. Junior running back Josh Asherian followed his classmate Noah Kalnitz’s interception with a short score, and linebacker Yered Wittenberg’s first interception of the game led to a short-field touchdown for senior Simmy Wilson. The Jaguars successfully converted one of their two extra-point attempts.
Furtah stemmed the flow there, marching down the field for a touchdown. Yered notched his second interception on the point-after attempt to keep the score at 13-6. On the ensuing drive, an underthrown pass by senior quarterback Doni Chasen resulted in an interception in the end zone, giving Furtah the ball down just one possession.
The competitiveness was short lived, however, after another Yered takeaway got the ball back for AJA, and Doni responded with a downfield strike to junior Elliot Sokol to push the score to 20-6, still in the first half.
The second half was a little less steady for the Jaguars then the first, after Noah Kalnitz traded touchdowns with Furtah. The Jaguars reached their final score of 35 with just a minute or so remaining, when Doni scored his fifth touchdown of the day, this time running the ball on the ground, and the Jaguars successfully went for three points from the twenty-yard line. With time ticking down, Furtah Prep scored on two plays, followed by a successful conversion, against AJA’s lowerclassmen. Final score: 35-19.
After a thirty minute break, AJA returned to the field for their second contest of the afternoon and their first chance for revenge against the Weber School since their championship defeat last year. A sign of things to come in the defensive-heavy game, the Jaguars went four and out on the first possession and looked in grave danger of trailing for the first time this season before Elliot’s goal line interception kept the score knotted at zero.
On their next drive, Doni dove for the pylon to start off the scoring in the nightcap of the doubleheader, which is where it would stand at the half. The Jaguars failed their extra point attempt, a pattern during the second game, but their stout defense kept the score at 6-0.
The low-scoring affair continued in the second half, with more defensive stops for AJA. Doni scampered in for his third combined rushing touchdown of the day to extend the lead to twelve. Stating the obvious after the game, Doni noted that he “finally ran a lot, [and it] really paid off.”
Weber’s quest to climb back into the game was dashed after a long drive ended in another clutch interception — this time by junior Noah Chen — within the five-yard line. A textbook deep pass to Simmy put the game out of reach at 18-0.
Representative of the game’s trends, Weber’s offense failed to gain any traction, and the Jaguars took the ball down to the two-yard line before kneeling out the clock. Final Score: 18-0.
Reflecting on the game, Doni acknowledged he missed some throws down the field, but overall, he felt that “the offense still was rolling,” especially on the baseline run-pass option play.
Head Coach Justin Katz took a nuanced approach to assessing the team’s performance. He noted that the offense “struggled to find a groove in the first half” and missed out on some opportunities to capitalize on the defense playing back and take some short yardage gains underneath. He said that the offense needs to take what the defensive gives them to open up the field more. On the other hand, he complimented the offense for “[coming] out firing” against Furtah and rebounding well with some adjustments in the second half of both games.
Coach Katz had nothing but praise for the defense, which “came up huge and really shut down anything Weber threw at us. Even after they made some big plays we regrouped and stood our ground.”
After playing both of the other teams in the league back-to-back, Elliot felt confident in saying that “as long as we perform well, we can win every game.” He added, “Hopefully we can keep it up.”
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