By Shawn Wansley
JCJC Sports Information Director

ELLISVILLE – Postseason play is here for the Jones County Junior College Bobcats.

JCJC, ranked No. 19 in the latest NJCAA/JCfootball.com poll, travels to Scooba to meet the eighth-rated East Mississippi Community College Lions on Saturday.

Kickoff is at 2 p.m. and JCJC school officials are hoping to show the game live on www.jcjc.tv. That will not be determined until the production staff is able to test equipment prior to kickoff at Sullivan-Windham Field. The game will air on WGDQ-FM, 93.1, with the pregame show beginning at 1:30 p.m.

“This is what you want,” said JCJC head coach Eddie Pierce on Thursday morning. “We are going up there to play and we still have a chance to win a state championship. This is what it is all about.”

The Bobcats, 6-3, enter the game coming off a tough, 20-17 loss to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College last week in a game that decided the MACJC South Division championship. The defeat snapped a six-game JCJC winning streak.

East Mississippi, 8-1, has won five straight since dropping a 43-26 decision to Gulf Coast on Sept. 17.

In last week’s game vs. Gulf Coast, the Bobcats jumped out to a 7-0 lead when quarterback Brian Robinson found wide receiver Jamieon Keyes on an 18-yard scoring pass early in the first quarter.

But the Bulldogs took advantage of a fumbled punt for one touchdown and then drove for another score to take a 14-7 lead after the first quarter. Gulf Coast extended the lead to 20-7 at halftime.

Jones drove to a first and goal to start the second half, but had to settle for a 22-yard Jacob Chancellor field goal to make it 20-10.

The Bobcats pulled even closer midway through the fourth quarter when Chris Lofton returned a punt 71 yards for a touchdown. They managed to get the ball back three times, but were unable to convert.

“I thought we played very hard last Saturday,” said Pierce. “We made some mistakes early, which hurt us. We had a dropped punt and a bad punt and it cost us 10 points. We hurt ourselves with special teams play.”

The Lions and Bobcats met in the second game of the season on Sept. 3 at Scooba and EMCC posted a 28-17 victory.

“We are a much better football team from when we played them in the second game of the season,” said Pierce. “We did not have an identity as a football team at that time. We made too many mistakes. We need to eliminate those mistakes and go up there and play well this week.”

The Lions used a strong first half effort on that evening to secure the victory. They jumped out to a 14-0 lead, led 21-7 at halftime and piled up 331 yards of offense, compared to JCJC’s 66 yards in the first half.

However, Jones would put up 215 yards in the second half and limit EMCC to just 88 yards. JCJC also put quarterback Brian Robinson into the game to start the fourth quarter and he led the Bobcats on two scoring drives. Robinson would then become the starter the following week vs. Co-Lin and lead Jones to six straight wins before last week’s defeat to Gulf Coast.

Robinson rushed for 50 yards and passed for 50 yards, all in the fourth quarter, in the first game vs. the Lions. Bubba Brown had a 21-yard scoring run, Justin Gaines scored from 5 yards out for the Bobcats and Chancellor booted a 27-yard field goal.

“We got better as the game went along at East Mississippi,” said Pierce.

EMCC All-American quarterback Randall Mackey, who tops the state in total offense, threw for 196 yards and two scores in the first game. He had scoring passes of 36 yards to Bill Franks and 10 yards to Derrick Steele. The Lions also got a 13-yard touchdown pass from Brad Henderson to Lance Lewis and a 12-yard scoring run by Pat Shed.

Mackey, who averages 273.9 yards per game through the air and is an Ole Miss commitment, has been slowed by injuries recently. He sat out EMCC’s 28-10 win over Itawamba two weeks ago and Henderson played the entire game. Last week, Mackey played the first half of the 28-10 win over Delta, but Henderson quarterbacked the second half.

“East Mississippi has a great football team with tremendous athletes on offense and they are good on defense,” added Pierce. “We are going to have to go up there and play smart football. We have to be as sound as we can on defense and not turn the ball over on offense.”

The winner of Saturday’s game will face the winner of the Gulf Coast/Coahoma game on Nov. 7 for the MACJC championship.


FINAL REGULAR SEASON MACJC STATISTICS
- Jones is sixth in scoring offense (24.4 ppg) and first in scoring defense (16.4 ppg).
- Jones is ninth in rushing offense (139.1 ypg) and third in rushing defense (98.2 ypg).
- Jones is 12th in passing offense (132.7 ypg) and sixth in passing defense (170.0 ypg).
- Jones is 11th in total offense (271.7 ypg) and third in total defense (268.2 ypg).
- Jones is ninth in turnover margin (0).
- JCJC’s Bubba Brown is seventh in rushing (70.8 ypg) and fourth in non-kicking scoring (60 points in eight games).
- JCJC’s Brian Robinson is 12th in passing offense (114.4 ypg) and 10th in passing efficiency (111.9).
- JCJC’s Anthony Jackson is 11th in receiving yards (55.4 ypg) and 11th in kickoff returns (21.9 ypr).
- JCJC ‘s Chris Lofton is first in punt returns (18.2 ypr).
- JCJC’s Jacob Chancellor is third in kicking scoring (43 points) and ninth in punting (34.8 ypp).
- JCJC’s DeAntrae McInnis is fifth in interceptions (4).
- JCJC’s Ryan Robinson is tied for fourth in sacks (1.1 per game).
- JCJC’s D.A. Autry is fourth in tackles (62 solos, 31 assists), Ramon Blakeney is 27th (42 solos, 24 assists), Marcus Pierce is 28th (42 solos, 17 assists) and Jamie Bender is 34th (40 solos, 25 assists).