JACKSONVILLE \u2013 The Marshall Mavericks (5-2, 2-1) entered the historic Tomato Bowl hoping to get back in the win column after their 14-0 loss to Texas High last week. The Jacksonville Indians (0-8, 0-4) were looking for their first win of the Monty Stevenson era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Indians will have to wait for that coveted win as the Mavericks took care of business with a 56-0 trouncing over their district foes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Denijh Montgomery and Doug Johnson led the way on the ground with 119 yards each on 13 and seven carries, respectively. Both rushed for two touchdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alton Henderson went 7-10 with 97 yards and one touchdown. Jamarion Sparks had one reception for 42 yards and a touchdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On defense, Sparks had a 40-yard pick six and Blanton Hale forced a fumble. The Mavericks\u2019 defense held the Indians to 76 rushing yards and 87 passing yards while forcing two turnovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marshall struck first in the first quarter with a one-yard touchdown run by Henderson, the first offensive touchdown since their 41-0 victory over Palestine on September 19. After forcing a three-and-out, Marshall was charging but Montgomery fumbled to give the ball back to Jacksonville as they entered the second quarter with a 7-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marshall forced a turnover-on-downs and capitalized on their next possession. Ashtin Sparks shed several tackles and rushed in for a 13-yard touchdown to give Marshall a 14-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other end, Hale forced a fumble and Cordiay Wilbert recovered the ball for three yards.<\/p>\n
Montgomery ran in for a two-yard touchdown to extend Marshall\u2019s lead to 21-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After another defensive stop, Marshall was set for another offensive flurry. Henderson lobbed a pass down the opposite sideline to Jamarion Sparks who snagged it for a 42-yard touchdown to give Marshall a 28-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work on that [route] over and over in practice. I believed my QB could give me the ball and I could catch it over the defender,\u201d said Sparks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[Alton] went through the entire progression and looked at the whole field. Jamarion ran a good route to give himself a chance at the ball, Alton put the ball up in a spot where he could go and get it. It was a good execution of a play that we\u2019ve run hundreds of times,\u201d said coach Jason Hammett.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heading into the locker room, Marshall held a firm 28-0 lead with no signs of slowing down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jacksonville held the first possession of the third quarter and were forced to punt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henderson set up a perfectly executed 58-yard jet sweep rush from Aidyn Green to place Marshall firmly in Jacksonville\u2019s territory. Johnson ran in for a 15-yard touchdown to give Marshall a 35-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After forcing yet another Jacksonville punt, Marshall\u2019s offense continued to light up the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mavericks had a first down for every single play of the possession capitalized by 14 and 15 yard receptions by Earnest Crookshank and Russell Crawford, respectively. Montgomery ran in for a one-yard touchdown to give the Mavericks a 42-0 lead heading into the fourth quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As if matters couldn\u2019t get any worse for Jacksonville, the offensive woes continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trent Carter threw an interception to Sparks who returned it for a 40-yard pick six, with help from a huge block from Wilbert, to extend Marshall\u2019s lead to 48-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw who the quarterback was looking at, tracked the ball, went up to get it and I just ran with it to the end zone,\u201d said Sparks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To put the icing on the cake in this victory, Johnson burst up the middle untouched for a 69-yard touchdown, set up by 29 yards on the ground by Green, to give Marshall a 56-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy blockers did what they were supposed to do. They opened up space for me and I saw green grass ahead of me,\u201d said Johnson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth Doug and Aidyn are two really young guys. They\u2019re sophomores that we\u2019ve been getting in. When you score and how much you score depends on who you\u2019re playing. With Jacksonville, the good news is our offensive line absolutely dominated them up front and that opened up a lot of holes and possibilities for us tonight,\u201d said Hammett.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The touchdown was the last straw for the Indians as both Hammett and Stevenson decided to implement a running clock with around five minutes left.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marshall emptied their bench which allowed Montgomery and Kyler Thompson to get some snaps at quarterback. Every single guy on defense was a backup except for Jagger Robbins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even with the running clock, the defensive backups showed why the Mavericks defense is not one to mess with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Te\u2019Quan Watson came in for a huge five-yard tackle-for-loss and Corday Gladney and J\u2019Kolby Christopher got a tackle. Two wide-receivers in Ridge Martinez and Adrian Williams got some snaps in the secondary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every single defensive player played until the final buzzer sounded and Marshall returned to the win column.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur defense is very physical. They keep tackling and could\u2019ve easily allowed them to break a play at some point. Our guys kept tackling and limited those big plays from happening,\u201d said Hammett.<\/p>\n
Up next, Marshall returns home to face off against Nacogdoches on October 24 for homecoming while Jacksonville will head to Mount Pleasant.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE \u2013 The Marshall Mavericks (5-2, 2-1) entered the historic Tomato Bowl hoping to get back in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,7576],"class_list":{"0":"post-9483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-jacksonville","9":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","10":"tag-jacksonville-news","11":"tag-marshall"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}