Saturday, November 7, 2009

MIAMI -- Going into his team's do-or-die District 16-4A finale at Miami Jackson on Friday night, Key West High football coach Jerry Hughes figured his team would need a few breaks and for some balls to bounce its way in order to come out successful.

When they took the field, however, things couldn't have gone much worse for the Conchs.

Key West committed four turnovers, had a punt blocked and missed two field goals en route to a 35-0 loss that eliminated the Conchs (5-3, 1-2) from playoff contention. With the win, Jackson (7-2, 2-1) clinched the second and final playoff berth from the district.

Despite getting shut out for the first time all season and missing out on the postseason for the fifth straight year, Hughes said his team still has plenty to play for when it wraps up the season and celebrates homecoming Friday night against visiting Miami Ferguson.

"We can still go out and win next week and have the first winning season since 2004," the coach said. "One of our goals was to win more than we lose. Our goal now is to go out on a winning note next week."

After forcing a three-and-out on the Generals' first possession of the game, it was pretty much downhill from there for the Conchs.

Key West was also stopped on three straight downs on its first possession, but Cale Hartle's first punt was called back due to not enough men on the line of scrimmage. Jackson decided to make him re-kick it, and the decision paid off. The Generals blocked the second try and took over at the Conchs' 10-yard line. Jackson quarterback Demetrius Whitehead tossed a touchdown pass to Deandre Jasper on the second play to put his team ahead, 7-0, midway through the first.

"That's been happening to us all year on special teams," Hughes said of the mistake. "It upsets me because we go over this before every game, but we haven't got special teams right all year."

Key West fumbled the ball away on the next possession, and Jackson cashed in the miscue when Jasper ran in a 16-yard touchdown on a fake field goal on the ensuing possession. Key West lost a fumble and missed a 22-yard field goal on its next two possessions, while Whitehead tossed another touchdown, this one to Chad Dancy from 20 yards out, to go ahead 21-0, a lead the Generals took into the half.

"With a team like Jackson, you have to get up on them first," Hughes said. "You can't allow them to get up 21 points on you. They have the skill kids to where they can just score at will on us, and that's what happened."

Whitehead threw two more touchdown passes in the second half -- a 15-yarder to Kerry Mintz and a 3-yarder to Jasper -- to put the game away.

"You can't give a team like this a short field," Hughes said. "Once again it came down to matchups, and we just don't match up with teams like this in the secondary once they get past our linebackers. We don't have that kind of team speed."

Key West quarterback Stephen Jones finished the night 11-for-18 passing for 101 yards with two interceptions. He added 90 yards on the ground on 11 carries.

Tailback Michel Sohi finished with 56 yards and two fumbles on 14 carries, and Clive Georges was the Conchs' top receiver with three catches for 38 yards.

Hartle finished 0-for-2 on field goal tries. He was wide left on the 22-yard attempt and came up short on a 45-yard try in the third quarter.

"We've got to score when we've got opportunities," Hughes said. "We had opportunities but we just didn't get it done."

Defensively, Devin Barber came up with an interception in the Jackson end zone in the final minute of the first half to kill a potential scoring opportunity, but Whitehead and the Generals had little trouble moving the ball through the air.

"We finally found a team that took advantage of our corners," Hughes said. "This is the first team that did it. Our kids gave everything they had, but their guys always came up with the ball."

wjacobson@keysnews.com