Jobe, Tigers pile up yardage in 57-32 win

By ANDY REED

Sports Editor

WATERTOWN — After some first-half misfires, Watertown's offense came out clicking on all cylinders in the second half Friday night as the Purple Tigers played cha-ching with the Robinson Stadium scoreboard to the tune of a 57-32 Region 4-A win over Monterey.

Opening the second half with a 16-8 lead, quarterback Ty Jobe found wideout Dakota Self behind the Monterey secondary for a 53-yard touchdown pass on the first play. It was the first of Jobe's two second-half scoring tosses, with the other covering 35 yards to wide receiver Jake Belcher, who also caught a 15-yard flea-flicker TD from Cooper Jacobsen.

Jobe, who completed 7 of 14 passes for 164 yards, scored the Tigers' first touchdown on an 18-yard run in the first quarter on his way to a 126-yard rushing night on 11 carries.

Running back Brannon Hill ran for three scores – a 7-yarder in the first quarter and 12- and 31-yarders in the second half as he gained 130 yards on 12 carries.

Coming off the bench, sophomore Brandon George bolted for an 80-yard touchdown run late as the Tigers reached the midway mark of their schedule with a 5-0 record, 3-0 in Region 4-A.

"We played a sloppy first half," Watertown coach Gavin Webster said after watching his spread offense pile up 512 total yards, including 333 on 30 carries. "We challenged them in the second half and they came out on both sides of the ball ready to go.

"That's what our offense is about. We can look sluggish one minute and get some quick scores the next minute. They were packing the box, putting seven in there, hard for us to run the ball and knew we had to throw the ball, open it up a little bit. We were able to make plays."

Monterey's single-wing produced 294 rushing yards by 11 Wildcat ball carriers on 30 rushes while Logan Jones completed 5 of 11 throws for 69 more. The Wildcats' 363 total yards, added to Watertown's, made for an 875-yard night by the teams as the visitors returned home 3-3, 2-2.

"They put 32 on the board, but I think it was 16-18 against our ones [first-team defense]," Webster said. "I was expecting that out of our young guys. They didn't see it as much this week. They were more or less running it against our varsity. Varsity-wise, we prepared our boys as well as I thought they could get prepared this week. You don't really know until you get here. We had a couple of miscues that they scored on in the first half and weren't making tackles. We shut them down in the second half and scored our points when we needed to score.

"We defended them pretty good."

The Tigers missed their first scoring opportunity on a fumble at the Monterey 8-yard line. But the Wildcats were stopped on fourth down near midfield and Watertown took it in for an 8-0 lead.

Monterey got on the board in the final minute of the first half on Jones' 40-yard pass to Josh Rhoten.

Dalton Phillips scored on a 3-yard run late in the third quarter to cut into what had become a 38-8 Watertown lead. A 13-yard run by Jesse Puckett and a 4-yard sweep by David Phillips in the fourth quarter rounded out Monterey's scoring.

Watertown will travel to Celina next Friday to face Clay County at 7 p.m.

Sports Editor Andy Reed can be reached at 444-3952, ext. 17; or by email at andy.reed@lebanondemocrat.com