MOUNT VERNON – Tristan Bowens plans to spend this weekend with a chain around his neck.
He plans to wear it proudly.
The chain is given to a Mount Vernon football player who makes a key turnover during a game. Bowens, a junior who didn’t play his first two years at school, caught the clinching interception in the Yellow Jackets’ 20-10 victory at home Friday over Buckeye Valley.
The first three quarters were, once again, a struggle for the Jackets. But they lit up in the fourth, outscoring the Barons, 13-0.
“We want to be the team that’s stronger when the game ends,” Mount Vernon coach Mike Kerr said. “We put in the most strenuous conditioning we’ve ever had in the offseason. It’s beyond anything we’ve done before.”
“We just weren’t clicking in the first half,” senior Ashton Fisher said. “That’s not on the coaches. That’s on us. We put in all the hard work in practice, but it didn’t look the same out here.”
For the second straight week, Fisher scored three touchdowns for Mount Vernon. His first score was easily the most exciting play of the first half; with the ball at their own 9, Fisher took a sweep to the left and, after a stiffarm to a defender, bolted 91 yards to give his team a 7-0 lead.
“I saw a blocker on my left, then I saw one on my right,” Fisher recalled. “I just stiffarmed the guy in front of me, and I took off.”
“Fisher is going to win any one-on-one against an opponent,” Kerr said.
Fisher wasn’t done with big plays.
On a fourth down in the third quarter, quarterback/punter Noah Hubbard faked a punt and threw to a wide-open Fisher. The play gained 27 yards and sent a spark through the team.
Trailing 10-7, the Jackets took the lead back in the fourth quarter on a six-yard Fisher run.
Later, with 2:46 remaining, he scored again – this time from 10 yards out – and the win was secured.
As he came off the field following the last touchdown, Fisher told his teammates, “That’s three, again.”
Fisher finished with 121 yards on 17 carries. He caught four passes for 54 yards.
Fellow running back Wyatt Gregory ended the night with 23 carries for 68 yards.
Bowens’ pick on the final drive was an exclamation point on a game dominated by Mount Vernon’s defensive front. The Jackets shut down the Baron’s powerful rushing attack and kept quarterback Grant Owens on his toes all night long. Owens completed 15 of 28 passes for 176 yards, but was sacked twice and hurried during most of his attempts.
“They (the defense) really stepped up and controlled this game,” Kerr said. “We’ve got the right rotation to go after it.”
Besides Fisher’s big run, Mount Vernon was held in check in the first half, netting just 42 yards. The offense didn’t begin rolling until late in the third period, when a 19-play, six-minute drive ended with Fisher’s second touchdown.
The drive included an amazing fourth-down conversion at the Buckeye Valley 30. Scrambling to his right, Hubbard threw across his body and found sophomore Gavin Moyer for 15 yards and a first down.
Hubbard completed nine of 20 passes for 111 yards.
Buckeye Valley’s final desperate attempt at a comeback ended when a pass floated into the hands of Bowens. The junior hadn’t played since the eighth grade, when he broke two bones in his arm on a gruesome play.
“I really wanted to come back and do this,” Bowens said. “This is my family. I came back for them.”
Buckeye Valley (1-2) narrowed the gap to 7-3 in the second quarter on a 27-yard field goal by Felippe Scharff.
The Barons took the lead late in the third on a 49-yard strike from Owens to Andre Ash.
The Jackets drove to the 10 and were set to attempt a game-tying field goal, but an encroachment penalty against Buckeye Valley gave Mount Vernon a first down. Fisher scored three plays later.
Friday’s win capped the first back-to-back home victories for Mount Vernon since 2014, not counting forfeits. At 2-1, it’s the Jackets’ best start since they began the 2015 season 3-0.
Mount Vernon begins Ohio Cardinal Conference play next Friday when the team travels to 0-3 Lexington.
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