By Robert Wilson
FLOWOOD – Jackson Prep has won an MAIS record 24 state football championships and its latest state championship coach, Doug Goodwin, wants to add another one to the list this season.
Goodwin, who came from Alabama five years ago after a Hall of Fame coaching career, won his first state title for Prep in his first season in 2022 and now is looking for his second and Prep’s 25th.
Players like senior quarterback Luke Essary, junior wide receiver-defensive back-return specialist Herrin Goodwin, senior offensive lineman Manning Parks, senior running back Wade Smith, and senior linebackers Brogen McCluskey and Owen Brown are going to do their best to get Goodwin another one.
Those players and their head coach took another step toward that goal Friday night with a 31-19 victory over Hartfield Academy in a MAIS Class 4A, District 2 game before an estimated 2,200 at Hartfield’s Community Bank Field in the Battle of Lakeland Drive between two schools separated by only about four miles.
Essary passed for 245 yards and two touchdowns, Goodman produced 207 all-purpose yards and two TDs and set up another one with a long punt return, Smith had 125 rushing and receiving yards yards and a score, Parks opened lanes for Prep’s running backs and protected Essary, and McCluskey and Brown led the defense and held Hartfield to its second lowest point total against MAIS competition this season.
Prep – ranked No. 2 in MAIS Class 4A and No. 12 in Mississippi by MaxPreps – improved to 7-1 overall and 2-1 in district play and won its third straight game since a three-point loss to Madison-Ridgeland Academy.
Hartfield – ranked No. 4 in MAIS Class 4A and No. 17 in Mississippi by MaxPreps – dropped to 3-4 overall and 0-3 in district play.
Prep was coming off an emotional, come-from-behind, 35-24 victory over defending MAIS Class 4A, Division I state champion and crosstown rival Jackson Academy. Prep outscored JA 21-3 in the final eight minutes for the victory between the crosstown rivals and end JA’s 13-game winning streak.
Hartfield drove down the field on the opening possesoin and took a 6-0 lead on sophomore Ethan Horne’s 8-yard TD run, but Prep outscored Hartfield 21-6 the rest of the first half. The Patriots finished the half when Goodman returned a punt 66 yards to set up Smith’s 3-yard TD run on the final play of the first half for a 21-12 Prep lead.
Prep added a 35-yard field goal by Jett Ngo and a 9-yard TD run by Goodman to hold off Hartfield in the second half.
“It’s tough to play two rivalry games back to back for sure and I think it showed a little bit on the first drive of the game,” said Goodwin, who won his 282nd career game, 48th at Prep after 234 wins in 27 seasons in Alabama. “We just didn’t have the urgency we played with last week. After the first quarter, we kind of settled into the rhythm of the game a little bit offensively, but we had two guys in the secondary get hurt (senior Asher Reynolds and sophomore Hayes Grenfell) and had to mix and match and match that part of it for the rest of the game. Asher and Hayes play the same position on both sides. Hayes came back and played some on defense. (Senior) Tripp Witcher stepped up and played both ways and did a real good job for us. We don’t have quite as much depth as we’ve had in the past, so we need to get healthy going into this last stretch of the season. I think we are getting a little better each week, which is always our goal. It was a great win on the road. I’m proud of our players and assistant coaches.”
Essary, once again, didn’t have an interception and hasn’t had one all season. He has thrown 115 passes for 1,281 yards and 15 TDs this season.
“As soon as it came Monday morning, we started preparing for Hartfield and we knew we had to be super focused on Hartfield and not dwell on last week’s win,” Essary said. “The touchdown before halftime was huge. It was a great play call and the offensive line and Wade did a great job of executing. Back to back wins feels great, definitely a confidence booster for me and my team. We just have to keep working hard like we have an 0-0 record.”
Goodman had 76 rushing yards on six carries, caught one pass for a 65-yard TD and had one punt return for 66 yards. He had an 81-yard kickoff return for a score against JA last week. Goodman now has 820 all-purpose yards this season.
“JA was a big game for us getting our confidence back,” Goodman said. “We knew this one was not going to be easy either, but knew we had a good opponent that we would be facing. We used the momentum last week to keep our offense going all night. The score before half was huge and gave us a huge momentum boost going into the locker room being up two scores. Winning both these games shows our team can.beat anyone and it makes us feel great as we lost to both of these teams last year. We all had a bad taste in our mouth last year and knew we had to get our revenge this year.”
Smith cracked the 1,000-yard mark for the season and now has 1,059 rushing yards and 12 TDs this season.
“Last week’s win was definitely a big one,” Smith said. “After that game, we came together as a team and said we didn’t want to sleepwalk through this week because we knew Hartfield was going to give us everything they had. The score before the half was huge because Hartfield was chewing so much clock when they had the ball, also we knew we had the ball coming out of the half and we didn’t feel like Hartfield’s defense was going to stop us. Beating two rivals back to back is big for us. We’d love to have that MRA game back, but we hope to see them again in the playoffs. For us, it’s all about building up to the playoffs where we hope to peak as a team.”
McCluskey was a big part of slowing down Hartfield’s offense, especially speedy quarterback Ethan Elliott (13 carries for 63 yards). Elliott came in with 468 rushing yards and a 10.6 yards per carry average with seven TDs.
“We stayed locked in and focused,” McCluskey said. “Our defense wasn’t playing how we should have in the first half, but we got a stop right before halftime and that forced a punt. Our punt returner (Goodman) had an amazing return, and we were able to punch it in for a touchdown. That really changed the momentum of the game for us. I was proud of our team for continuing to fight in the second half. Our defense started playing better and our offense played well pretty much all game. They were another team on the schedule we needed to beat, but our goal goes beyond beating our rivals. We’re focused on winning that last game.”
After winning the school’s first state championships in 2023 and 2024 and 26 of 28 games during that two-year period, the Hawks are 9-10 over the past season and a half.
Hartfield was trying to bounce back from a 49-7 loss last week to undefeated Tupelo, a MHSAA Class 7A school which is ranked No. 1 in Mississippi and No. 88 in the country by MaxPreps.
“Against Prep, we average about eight offensive possessions each time we play,” said Hartfield coach Craig Bowman, who has won 62 games in his seven seasons at Hartfield and was the Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Coach of the Year in 2023 after leading the Hawks to a 14-0 record and its first state football title in school history. “If we don’t capitalize each time we have the ball, then we are not going to have a good night. The touchdown before the half was 100 percent my fault and I owned it to the team at halftime. But it put us in a bad spot and I can’t do that to us against such a disciplined team like Jackson Prep. I am proud of how our kids played and represented our community. We have a few weeks before post season to work on ourselves and prepare as best we can.”
In addition to his rushing yards, Elliott passed for 176 yards and two TDs, an 11-yarder to Luke Wesson in the second quarter and a 48-yarder to Dylan Harris in the third quarter.
