Henderson scores big win over Jacksonville<\/p>\n
Published 2:39 am Saturday, September 13, 2025<\/p>\n
\n By Audrey Blaschke\/The Henderson News<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n HENDERSON \u2014 The Henderson Lions (2-1) roared to a decisive 50\u20132 victory over the Jacksonville Indians (0-3) on Friday night, holding Jacksonville without a touchdown and yielding just a third-quarter safety.<\/p>\n The Lions dominated on both sides of the ball. Explosive plays from quarterback Vince Howard, Jesstin Starling, Macen Jones, Jayden Bishop and Lemarion Coleman in the first half gave them a 35-0 lead at halftime. Varian Williams was a highlight on defense, forcing an intentional-grounding call in the end zone for a safety\u2014one of three that occurred in the game\u2014and making an interception.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not often you see three safeties in a game,\u201d remarked Henderson Head Coach Ricky Meeks. \u201cI\u2019m very excited about the way [the Lions] competed. [Williams] is coming along,\u201d he added about the senior\u2019s standout efforts that helped keep Jacksonville scoreless in the first half. \u201cHe\u2019s getting better each week. When he plays with confidence he\u2019s really good on the defensive line.\u201d<\/p>\n Howard opened the scoring on the Lions\u2019 first snap, hitting a wide-open Jones for a 61-yard touchdown. A string of turnovers followed on both sides, including interceptions made by Henderson\u2019s Au\u2019maz Jackson and Jacksonville\u2019s CJ Crockett.<\/p>\n Williams pressured Jacksonville QB Ben Bolten into that intentional grounding early in the second quarter. On the ensuing free kick, Coleman received and took it all the way home\u201470 yards\u2014for a touchdown. Kicker Ivan Navarro was short on the extra point\u2014his first miss of the season\u2014but the Lions were comfortably ahead 15-0.<\/p>\n Williams intercepted Bolten on Jacksonville\u2019s next drive, setting Henderson up at the Indians\u2019 19. Two penalties pushed the Lions back, but backup quarterback Blake Meeks soon connected with Coleman for a 22-yard pass. Starling made his first score of the game with a three-yard carry, and Henderson led 21-0. Starling would add two eight-yard touchdown runs before the half was over after two Henderson drives fueled by strong runs from Howard and Bishop and a 53-yard pass from Howard to Jones to set them up in the red zone.<\/p>\n Starling broke loose again on the first play of the third quarter with a 51-yard score. Jacksonville picked up their only points of the night after blocking the extra point that Jordan McGowan returned for a defensive safety.<\/p>\n Meeks connected with Ayden Perry on a 40-yard gain and then again for an 18-yard, one-handed touchdown catch to make it 48-2. Early in the fourth, a high snap on a Jacksonville punt sailed into the end zone for a safety, pushing Henderson\u2019s lead to 50-2.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did some good things and we\u2019ve got some things we\u2019ve got to get corrected,\u201d said Coach Meeks, noting that penalties are going to be his coaching staff\u2019s main concern in practice next week. Henderson incurred a handful throughout the game, including two that called back touchdowns. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of self-inflicted wounds\u2026 Those are things we\u2019ve got to get cleaned up because once district rolls around, because of the strength of our district, we\u2019re not going to be able to do that on a Friday night and still overcome and win.\u201d<\/p>\n Henderson will face Gainesville next Thursday at neutral site Kaufman High School for their last pre-district game. Jacksonville will look to regroup with a Friday matchup at Athens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Henderson scores big win over Jacksonville Published 2:39 am Saturday, September 13, 2025 By Audrey Blaschke\/The Henderson News…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-223038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115195930549080056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}