The drive ultimately stalled, but Spain Park extended its lead to 17-13 on a field goal with 3:53 remaining in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
From there, the Jaguars\u2019 defense took over.<\/p>\n
Sparkman continued to threaten with Naylon\u2019s legs, but Spain Park repeatedly found ways to limit the damage. MJ Evans made a key stop in the third quarter, while the secondary also came up with several strong plays to keep the Senators from creating explosive passing plays.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars appeared poised to extend their lead early in the fourth quarter, but Davis threw an interception on an ill-advised pass across his body, giving Sparkman possession with a chance to take the lead.<\/p>\n
Spain Park\u2019s defense answered again.<\/p>\n
The Senators moved the ball but eventually faced fourth-and-7 with 2:41 remaining. Under pressure, Naylon couldn\u2019t find an open receiver, and the pass fell incomplete.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars took over and turned to their running game and clock management.<\/p>\n
CJ Davis picked up several important yards, and Spain Park converted a third-and-1 with a quarterback sneak to keep the clock moving. The Jaguars then closed the game in victory formation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Nash played really well and did a lot of really good things,\u201d Vakakes said. \u201cHe moved in the pocket well and kept his eyes downfield, extending the play a couple of times on some scrambles. He made a couple of those first-game mistakes that he\u2019ll clean up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis\u2019 first varsity start was a mixed but promising performance. He showed poise moving around the pocket and made several big-time throws, while also experiencing the kind of mistakes expected from a first-time starter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a chance to be special, but he\u2019s got to keep getting better every week,\u201d Vakakes said.<\/p>\n
The bigger story for Spain Park, however, may have been what happened defensively after halftime.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars entered the season with several new faces and plenty of questions after losing key contributors from last year\u2019s team. They struggled early against Sparkman\u2019s rushing attack but adjusted after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur defense wasn\u2019t executing early on in the game,\u201d Vakakes said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t playing with leverage or technique, and they were just trying to do too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vakakes credited Naylon for creating those problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best pure athletes we\u2019ll see,\u201d Vakakes said. \u201cHe could just really fly, and hurt us on the outside with his legs. We lost contain a couple of times, and things like that you can\u2019t lose contain with. He\u2019s a really good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain Park corrected those issues after halftime and held the Senators scoreless over the final 24 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur defense, though, did a much better job in the second half and played well and preserved the game,\u201d Vakakes said.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars finished with a road victory despite struggling to establish the run consistently and committing several penalties.<\/p>\n
Those are areas Vakakes knows must improve, but the Jaguars leave Sparkman with exactly what they wanted to begin the season: a win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of new guys in different spots this season,\u201d Vakakes said. \u201cTonight, we couldn\u2019t run the ball as well as we\u2019d like to, but again the kids fought and did what they had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a Spain Park team with aspirations of competing in a loaded Class 6A, Region 3, Friday\u2019s opener provided an early test of its ability to win a close game.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars passed that test.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019ll have an opportunity to clean up the mistakes before the next one, a home game against Bessemer City on Friday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The drive ultimately stalled, but Spain Park extended its lead to 17-13 on a field goal with 3:53…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[543,313,541,17,539,540],"class_list":["post-74115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-280-reporter","tag-football","tag-hoover","tag-spain","tag-spain-park","tag-spain-park-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}