The Franklinton Demons football team rolled over their regional round playoff opponent last Friday in Demon Stadium. The Demons took a close game at halftime and rolled to a blowout win over the Jennings Bulldogs, 40-14. The Demons will now move on to the quarterfinals to face off with the 11-0 North Desoto Griffins, who are the 1 seed in Division II Non Select.
The Demons opened the game driving for a touchdown as Ricardo Burris went in for a 16 yard touchdown. Liam Young added the extra point to put the Demons up 7-0. After the Bulldogs punted the Demons again drove for a score as Young booted a 22 yard field goal to put the Demons up 10-0 early in the second quarter.
The Bulldogs got on the board on a 23 yard quarterback run to cut the score to 10-6 after their fake kick was stuffed. The Demons added another field goal on the last play of the first half to go into the halftime with a 13-6 lead. Young was good from 25 on his second field goal of the game.
The Demons opened the second half with a surprise onside kick that they recovered but failed to score as they stalled out on the Bulldogs eight. They did score on their next possession to go up 20-6 as DaMikies McClain caught a pass from Jacob Crain and ran it in for a 40 yard touchdown. After a fumble recovery the Demons added another touchdown on Dalton Freeman’s four yard run, for a 27-6 lead early in the fourth.
The Demons added two more touchdowns as Colin Stewart caught an 18 yard pass and Burris went in from twelve yards out for a 40-6 lead with 3:43 remaining in the game.
The Demons sent in their reserves on defense and the Bulldogs managed to score with :23 left for the final score of 40-14.
Coach Nick Saltaformaggio said his team believed they would win the second half and they did. "The first half was close. We left points on the ground there at the end of the half. That's an eight win team over there and we knew it was going to be close at half and it's the guy who can go in and believe that they're going to win the second half of the ball game that's going to win these playoff games."
Coach Salt says it's going to be a great game in the quarterfinals. "We're going to go up to North Desoto and I think when it’s Thanksgiving week throw all of the seeds out the window, just line up and play football. And that's what we're gonna do and it's going to be a great football game because of the two quarterbacks involved in this game. It's going to be exciting and we're going to go give it our best shot. If we can win it, Cecilia beat Lakeshore tonight, so we could very well play a semi-final game in Demon Stadium."
Senior quarterback Jacob Crain continues to roll as he passed for 255 yards and two touchdowns, completing 18 of 25 passes and rushed twice for 2 yards.
DaMikies McClain was the leading receiver with 7 catches for 144 yards and a touchdown. Colin Stewart had 3 for 57 yards and a touchdown, Jayden Burkhalter had 4 for 26 yards, Rayden Rayborn had 2 for 8 yards and Ricardo Burris had 1 for 13.
Rayborn was the leading rusher with 66 yards on 14 carries, Burris had 13 attempts for 57 yards and 2 touchdowns, Dalton Freeman had 2 carries for 8 yards and a touchdown, Burkhalter had 2 for 21 and McClain had one for 7 yards.
Liam Young was 4 of 4 on extra points and hit two field goals of 22 and 25 yards.
