By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
After the fact, Airline quarterback Ben Taylor was way off target Friday night.
Off the mark, and on head coach Justin Scogin’s noggin went the postgame Gatorade dousing Taylor and teammates delivered as the unbeaten Vikings began the postgame handshake lineup after they salted away the coveted District 1-5A championship with a dominant 35-21 victory over Byrd at Lee Hedges Stadium.
It was so insufficient that a second round was delivered by more Vikings, soaking Scogin as thoroughly as his team handled the formidable Yellow Jackets.
It was 21-0 after three Airline possessions, and Byrd only briefly climbed within 14 points twice after being blanked in the first half. There wasn’t a knockout, and the Vikings were way short of their 57-point scoring average, and typical yardage totals.
But so were the Yellow Jackets. Both teams posted season-low point totals.
As Scogin drip dried afterward, he was ebullient with his team, celebrating the program’s second district title in his three seasons – and the Vikes’ first 9-0 (7-0 in district) mark since 1998.
It mattered greatly that the clincher came in convincing style over Byrd (7-2, 5-2).
“We held Byrd to 21. This is a really good Byrd team, a really productive offense, one of the best in the state,” said Scogin. “Our defense made play after play. Any time Byrd had an opportunity to get the momentum, we were right there on top of them to shut it down.”
The most pivotal moment defensively came late in the first period, on the seventh Byrd snap of a grind-it-out march that chewed 4 ½ minutes but only 19 yards. Quinton Hilliard, who later scored twice, took a pitch left, but five yards later, the ball popped out.
Eli Dollar knocked it loose, and Braylyn Jackson dived on it just inside the Airline sideline at the Jackets’ 49. On the next snap, D.J. Allen burst over the left side, bounced off a defender 10 yards downfield and veered right, outracing more Byrd boys to a devastating second score and a 14-0 lead late in the first period.
The third time Airline took possession, it ended 21-0, after a nine-play, 80-yard drive concluded 7:11 before halftime on the first of Kenny Darby’s two touchdown catches, a mundane 4-yarder from Taylor.
The second was anything but. Taylor’s 36th TD pass of the season was a perfectly-delivered, crossfield throw on Darby’s back shoulder midway into the end zone on the Byrd sideline. Darby, who as a junior is deservedly getting big-time recruiting attention as the state’s only 1,000-yard receiver (1,326 yards), leaped and toe-tapped as he fell out of bounds for his 20th six-pointer this season with 7:31 to go, lifting the Vikings up 35-14.
“I looked at him, tapped my leg, and went for the back shoulder and it was just money,” said Taylor, 31 of 39 for 278 yards. “He’s going to go get it wherever it is. He’s easy to throw the ball to.”
“That dude’s ridiculous,” said Scogin. “I think he broke the school record for (receiving) touchdowns in a season tonight. I think he’s as good as there is in America.”
It was another defensive play that stopped Byrd’s best drive of the half. On fourth-and-1 at the Airline 46, Vikings linebacker Jayden Gladney pounced on a fumble. He credited the scout team.
“We had our scout guys, who gave us a great look all week,” said Gladney. “We knew Byrd was good. It was what we’d been practicing all week. I was in the right place at the right time because we were so well prepared by the scouts and the coaches.”
That helped preserve the first-half shutout and a three-score lead. Byrd wasn’t able to seriously pressure Airline afterward.
“We needed to get a stop early, and didn’t. Then the two turnovers, that hurt,” said Yellow Jackets’ coach Stacy Ballew. “We played a little better in the second half. I was proud of our kids, they fought all the way through, played hard.”
Taylor said all systems were on go for the Vikings.
“We came out firing, and defense came out firing. We knew from the get-go this was going to be a defensive game, and they stepped up extremely, and made some huge plays to set us up to score,” he said. “It wasn’t as close as we thought it would be, because the defense stepped up so much.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com
AIRLINE 35, BYRD 21
SCORING SUMMARY
Vikings 14 7 7 7 – 35
Yellow Jackets 0 0 7 14 – 21
A – D.J. Allen 2 run (kick failed), 7:22 1st, Airline 6-0
A – Allen 49 run (Ayden Baker pass from Ben Taylor), 2:43 1st, Airline 14-0
A – Kenny Darby 4 pass from Taylor (Ben Jump kick), 7:11 2nd, Airline 21-0
B – Quinton Hilliard 10 run (Asher Murray kick), 6:22 3rd, Airline 21-7
A – Jarvis Davis Jr. 4 run (Jump kick), 3:10 3rd, Airline 28-7
B – Hilliard 6 run (Murray kick), 10:36 4th, Airline 28-14
A – Darby 17 pass from Taylor (Jump kick), 7:31 4th, Airline 35-14
B – Harrison Ayres 1 run (Murray kick), 0:23 4th, Airline 35-21
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING – Airline (24-124), Allen 11-103, 2 TDs; Davis 4-8, TD; Micah Johnson 4-7, Taylor 4-6; Byrd (48-261) Hilliard 13-88, 2 TDs; Ayres 15-73, TD; Collin Deere 10-53, Christian Maxie 9-40.
PASSING – Airline, Taylor 31-39, 278, 2 TD; Byrd, Ayres 3-7, 69 yards.
RECEVING – Airline, Darby 13-126, 2 TDs; Davis 10-97, Johnson 4-34, Allen 3-23; Byrd, Alex Schoonover 2-54, Kristian Roberson 1-15.