Tabor striving for perfect season
(pictured above: Mount Tabor standout Tyrone Stevens.)
Mount Tabor’s junior varsity could be in trouble and not even know it. This team appears to be close to invincible at 7-0. It would be easy to relax and presume that the remainder of the season will be a cakewalk.
Coming off a 35-6 blow-out victory over Reagan last week, Mount Tabor is primed to run the table on its 10-game schedule. Only Reynolds, Parkland and Davie County stand in the way of perfection. So, will the Spartans succumb to complacency? Or, will the big-head syndrome finally set in? The coming weeks will tell.
In the latest win, JaQuan King scored three touchdowns and De’Vante LeGrande scored twice to account for the Spartans scoring. Reagan, in the meantime, was held in check by a menacing defense. The Raiders’ lone score came early in the second quarter when Jayshon Cornelius broke free on a 49-yard touchdown run.
Tieshuan Brown
“This is a lot different from last season,” said coach Tieshuan Brown, whose team finished up at -6 a year ago. “The talent level, especially our freshmen class, is very high. JaQuan has been lighting it up all year long. Yes, we hope to finish undefeated, but we’re going to take it one game at a time. We keep stressing in every practice that it’s all about being ready to play our very best on Thursdays (game nights).”
Mount Tabor rocked Reagan with a quick offensive flurry in the first quarter. The Spartans recovered two pooch kicks on kickoffs by Benjamin Gardner to get good field position. Quarterback Teddy Christakos fired touchdown passes of 25 and 26 yards to King, who added another score on a jaw-dropping 89-yard run to give Mount Tabor a 22-0 at the end of the quarter.
Christakos connected with LeGrande on a 53-yard touchdown pass late in the second quarter. LeGrande added the finishing touches in the third quarter on a 10-yard touchdown run in which he carried two tacklers across the goal line.
“This was our worst game of the year,” said Coach Josh McGee of Reagan, whose team is now -. “But this was also the best team we’ve played all year. When you fall behind by two touchdowns in the first minute and 13 seconds of the game, you’re in trouble. Give them credit, but for us it was a lack of focus and a lack of effort. They exposed our flaws, so we’ve got to go back to work and get better.”
Forbidding defense sets the standard for Mount Tabor. Opposing offenses have had no success over the course of this season. In seven games, the Spartans have given up a measly 46 points – which averages out to 6.6 points per game. But there’s still more to the stat line. This is a proactive stop unit that generates offense on its own. So far, the defense has scored 35 points off of forced turnovers.
Up front, defensive ends Karron Jeter and Tyrone Stevens have developed as relentless sack artists who make life difficult for opposing quarterbacks. The linebacking crew of Christopher Goldston, Jack U’Ren and Austin Canty ranks among the area’s best at the junior varsity level. In the secondary, Elijah Banks, Matthew Powell, Chrishon Goldston and Jaylen Peoples are proven commodities who have big-play capability.
