By Zachary Harmuth
After finishing the first quarter against Cane Ridge tied at 14, Ravenwood woke up and, led by quarterback Avery Jankowski, scored the game’s next 27 points on the way to a first round playoff win.
The final score Friday night might have been 47-26, but in the first quarter Ravenwood came out flat, giving up a lot of yards to the powerhouse run game of Cane Ridge, and two touchdowns.
The Ravenwood offense struggled to start, but kept on par when Austin Burt ran back a kickoff 77 yards and six points.
Cane Ridge came right back and scored, going up 14-7 late in the first.
Then Jankowski, who finished 18-24 passing for 197 yards, 2 scores and another running, took over.
To tie the game he delivered a strike to Chris Wein for a 20-yard touchdown.
Then the defense started to figure out how to slow down the Cane Ridge running game a little bit, which went for 308 yards on the night (which was about their season average), and got the ball back without giving up points.
Ravenwood then drove for a field goal, and again the defense, led by Jeb Stewart’s 13 tackles and Will Johnson’s 7, 3 for loss and 2 sacks, bent but did not break. The big difference-maker for the Ravenwood defense was the 6 fumbles it caused.
Jankowski then led another dirve that ended with a Seth Rowland, 8 rushes for 47 yards, reception for a 2-yard touchdown.
Getting the ball back, yet again without giving up points- this time from a Cane Ridge fumble, Jankowski marched the team down the field and capped the drive with a 4-yard score, this one with his feet.
The second quarter went much differently than the first, with 17 unanswered Ravenwood points, which set the tone for the rest of the game and sent RHS into halftime up 31-14.
They did not look back.
Van Jefferson had a very solid game at receiver, 9 catches for 87 yards.
Ravenwood actually gained fewer total yards than Cane Ridge- 401 to 336. But threw for more than a hundred yards more than Cane Ridge’s 93-yards passing in the game.
What hurt Cane Ridge the most was the three fumbles it lost, compared to zero turnovers by Ravenwood.
Next week Ravenwood will host Blackman at home in round two of the 6A playoffs1.
Please join our FREE Newsletter
