JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – First, Ed White’s players celebrated by running to the sidelines and cueing up music from the band. They briefly huddled, then sprinted off the field, shouting, waving their helmets and then meeting with family, friends and classmates outside the fieldhouse.
For good measure, a lot of phones were filming the occasion Friday night.
That’s what it looks like to win a district title against a rival such as Riverside.
The Commanders, trailing by six and with virtually no offense in the second half, drove 67 yards in the final 3 minutes, 29 seconds of the game. After quarterback King Boylston came up a yard short of the end zone on a scramble, he calmly lined up the team on fourth down and handed off to freshman Rontrez Loyd, who — with Boylston adding a “Philly push” — plunged over the goal line in the Varsity 4 Game of the Week.
Van Thang’s extra point, with 13 seconds left, virtually secured the District 4-4A title for White (6-3, 2-0) in a 21-20 victory.
“It just feels so good to win with my brothers,” said Commanders defensive back Davonte Mango, who was involved in two pivotal plays. “I’ve been with these boys since I came to high school, from freshman year to junior year. We’re district champs. We did it.”
They did, reclaiming the district title, and a playoff spot, a season after Riverside (5-5, 1-1) took it away from them. While the Generals still seem to be in decent shape with the postseason, taking a No. 4 regional ranking into their season finale, White’s players know they are playoff bound.
It took Boylston overcoming a sketchy second half in which he failed to complete a pass for 20 minutes, one in which White failed three times on fourth down on its first three possessions of the second half.
“I’ve been at Trinity. These past two years, we won district championships,” said Boylston, a sophomore who had 44 of his 173 passing yards on the last drive. “This is my first year starting, and it feels great. It’s Senior Night, too, and we knocked off the rivals. I know (the seniors) are proud.”
There was a big effort needed from the defense, which forced three fumbles, including an unusual pick-six fumble return by Mango in the second quarter that shifted the tide of the game.
“Mango came through and really made plays; I’m proud of him,” Commanders coach Lawrence Johnson said. “We’ve got a young team, a lot of fight. I’m really happy to win the district title with this team this year.”
Riverside was ahead 6-0 and at the White 35 on the opening play of the second quarter. On the 11th play of the drive, Generals quarterback Glenn Foreman scrambled ahead of the line of scrimmage and passed behind. But Mango stepped in front of the backward pass, picked it out of the air and sped away for a 66-yard score to give the Commanders their first lead of the night.
“The ball came my way. I just reacted and took it for the six,” said Mango, a junior who wears the No. 6. “The six on my jersey, I took it for my team. I felt like I brought life to the team.”
It seemed that way. Up to that point, Riverside running back Shermon Davis had been almost unstoppable, rushing for 97 yards and a score. After that, Davis managed 48 yards on 14 carries, getting his sixth 100-yard game of the season, but only breaking off two gains of 10-plus yards over the final 36 minutes.
Still, the Generals had another big opportunity.
With White ahead 14-12 with little more than four minutes left in the first half, Riverside marched down the field again. Foreman took a keeper down to the 2-yard line, but Mango and Joshua Patterson each grabbed Foreman’s arm. The ball popped in the air and Josiah Smith recovered in the end zone for the Commanders to end the scoring threat.
At the same time, however, there were struggles on offense for the Commanders. Boylston missed on six consecutive passes from the end of the first half into the fourth quarter, with a tipped interception at the Generals 8 in the final two minutes of the first half seeming to be the starting point.
White failed three times on fourth down on its second half drives. The first drive ended at the Riverside 8 when Landon Francis took a reverse and went out of bounds shy of the first-down marker. The next faltered at the Generals 11 when Ronald Williams broke up a pass. The third drive finished with fourth-and-11 on the Riverside 32 when Anthony Henry forced an incompletion.
But Riverside didn’t take full advantage of the Commanders’ inability to convert. The Generals’ first possession of the second half ended with fake punt from their own 23 that was easily deciphered and failed. Their third drive ended with another fumble, with Julian Holt forcing it and Patterson recovering.
But at least there was a 16-play drive on Riverside’s second possession of the second half in which the Generals moved 92 yards and took 7:29 off the clock. That was capped when Zion Hicks hauled in a 14-yard scoring pass from Jaidan Delaune and then the two connected on the two-point try for a 20-14 Riverside lead.
So, after stopping White on its third possession of the half with little more than six minutes remaining, the Generals just needed a couple of first downs to ice the game. The team registered one first down but a pair of low snaps, including one in which Delaune lost 22 yards before recovering it, scuttled the drive.
From there, Boylston took over, driving his team 67 yards on 14 plays in 3:16, hitting four different receivers for completions, including a fourth-and-5 to Patterson with 1:25 left.
It was a title-worthy drive when it was needed most.
“King is our guy,” Johnson said. “We can count on him down the stretch. These were some of the plays we didn’t make at the beginning of the season. We learned from those mistakes, and it looks like we learned how to finish. I was proud of the way he was composed and able to lead that drive.”
White 21, Riverside 20
Riverside, 6, 6, 8, 0 — 20
White, 0, 14, 0, 7 — 21
R – Shermon Davis 13 run (kick failed)
W – Davonte Mango 66 fumble return (Van Thang kick)
R – Tae’Shaun Gelsey 31 pass from Glenn Foreman (pass failed)
W – Nick Roberson 42 pass from King Boylston (Thang kick)
R – Zion Hicks 14 pass from Jaidan Delaune (Hicks pass from Delaune)
W – Rontrez Loyd 1 run (Thang kick)
Category: R — W
First downs: 20 — 17
Rushes-yards: 39-170 — 36-105
Passing: 198 — 173
Comp-Att-Int: 15-23-0 — 13-25-1
Fumbles-lost: 3-3 — 1-1
Penalties-Yards: 7-65 — 7-70
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — R: Davis 25-145, Delaune 6-25, Foreman 3-10, Gelsey 1-5, Myles Kendrick 1-4, Marvin Butler 2-4, Team 1-(-23). W: Loyd 15-58, Boylston 7-28, Landon Francis 3-9, Joseph Williams 10-10, Team 1-0.
PASSING — R: Delaune 7-14-0-99, Foreman 8-9-0-99. W: Boylston 13-25-1-173.
RECEIVING — R: Gelsey 5-90, Kendrick 3-40, Zavier Hilliard 3-31, Hicks 3-30, Davis 1-7. W: Roberson 5-99, Francis 3-27, Ulysess Johnson 2-19, Williams 1-11, Joshua Patterson 1-10, Loyd 1-7.