Sep 7, 2018 3 min read

BELLE VERNON – It appears the annual conference title swapping between Belle Vernon and Thomas Jefferson will continue for another year.

Thomas Jefferson downed the Leopards 36-14 Friday night in a Big Eight Conference showdown.

“We made some plays tonight but left others on the field,” said Belle Vernon head coach Matt Humbert. “Then we also made some mistakes that hurt us. We were out of position on two of their touchdowns and we had three bad snaps.”

The Leopards drove down the field on the opening drive of the game but could not score despite reaching TJ’s 2-yard line.

Humbert sent out Cam Guess, one of the top kickers in the country, on fourth down but a bad snap could not be handled and TJ tackled Guess to force a turnover on downs.

TJ scored the first points of the game four plays later.

The Jaguars moved to the BV 27, and Max Shaw raced into the end zone to give the guests a 6-0 lead.

TJ had issues of its own the kick attempt and never got the kick attempt up.

Belle Vernon answered with a quick score of its own as Hayden Pascoe raced 78 yards on the first, and only, play of the drive to tie the score and Guess’s extra point gave the Leps a 7-6 lead with 5:55 to play in the first quarter.

“We had two big splash plays but so did they,” Humbert said.

The Jaguars took an 8-7 lead on a safety on another bad snap, this time on a punt with 2:15 to play in the quarter.

After returning the ensuing free kick to the Belle Vernon 30-yard line, Shaw scored his second touchdown as he went untouched on the next play to give TJ a 15-7 lead with 1:58 left in the opening quarter.

A rainstorm hit early in the second quarter, and the rain hurt both offenses for the remainder of the half.

However, the Jaguars recovered a Belle Vernon fumble with 19 seconds to go in the half at Leopards’ 35. Shane Stump hit Dan Deabner on a slant on the next play and TJ took a 22-7 lead into halftime.

“We can’t make mistakes like that,” Humbert said. “That one gave them momentum going into halftime.”

Thomas Jefferson blew the game open on the second play of the second half as Stump found Deabner on an 80-yard scoring strike, and TJ led 29-7 38 seconds into the third quarter.

Pascoe went 55 yards for a touchdown a short time later to cut the score to 29-14 iin the third quarter. Up to that point, Pascoe had 250 yards rushing on 14 carries.

Deron Vanbibber closed the scoring in the fourth with a six-yard run for TJ.

The Jaguars had 476 yards on 59 plays while the Leopards gained 248 yards on 42 plays.

Pascoe finished with 270 yards on 18 carries for Belle Vernon while the rest of the team had minus-22 yards of total offense.

TJ’s Shaw had 119 yards on 14 carries, with 100 coming in the first half.

Stump completed seven of 14 passes for the Jaguars for 205 with six completions going to Deabner for 200 yards.

“We will learn from this and our young players gained valuable experience tonight,” Humbert said. “There is a lot of football left to be played and we will get better because of what happened tonight.”