The No. 7 TJC football team capped Homecoming week with a dominating victory against Kilgore College, defeating the Rangers 42-12 at Trinity Mother Frances Rose Stadium on Saturday.
Terrance Taylor rushed for 190 yards and two touchdowns, Joshua Reynolds caught five passes for 172 yards and two TDs and Tre Rosser returned an interception 66 yards for another score as the Apaches finished the regular season 8-1.
TJC will face Navarro in the first round of the SWJCFC playoffs next Saturday at Rose Stadium.
But first, the Apaches ended a week of celebrations with a big win, bouncing back from their only loss of the season last week to Trinity Valley Community College.
TJC rolled up over 400 yards of offense despite losing five fumbles and never allowed the Rangers into the end zone, holding them two four field goals. Kilgore missed another two 3-point attempts.
“It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t perfect but I thought our defense was outstanding,” TJC head coach Danny Palmer said. “The offense, we fumbled the football and put us in a bind but we made plays when we needed to play and I thought our kicking game was good.”
The Apaches struck first when Randy Price connected with Reynolds for a 61-yard touchdown just less than three minutes into the game to give TJC a 7-0 lead. Six minutes later, Taylor scored his first touchdown of the game on an 8-yard run to make it 14-0.
Kilgore got its first field goal at the 2:54 mark of the first quarter and the Apaches took a 14-3 lead into the second quarter.
The Rangers cut the TJC lead to 14-6 two and a half minutes into the second quarter, but that would be as close as they would get.
Lamar Caraway scored on 9-yard run for the Apaches with 5:26 left in the first half to make it 21-6. Kilgore got one more field goal before halftime and TJC took a 21-9 lead into the break.
The Rangers opened the second-half scoring with their fourth and final field goal of the game to cut the TJC lead to 21-12. The Apaches would score the final 21 points of the game.
Reynolds scored on another long reception, this one a 67-yarder from Caraway to push TJC’s lead to 28-12 with 2:06 to go in the third quarter.
Four plays into the fourth quarter, Rosser picked off a Kilgore pass and raced 66 yards for a touchdown, all but sealing the win for the Apaches as they took a 35-12 lead early in the final period.
“It was a third-and-long and I knew they had to go deep with the ball,” Rosser said. “The quarterback threw it and I just made a play on the ball.”
TJC scored one more time, on a 6-yard run by Taylor – his second of the game – with 1:51 to go to account for the final margin of victory.
If the Apaches had any memories from their loss to TVCC last week, it didn’t show as they beat their rival for the second time this season. TJC defeated Kilgore 56-24 on Sept. 7.
“We had been preaching all week just to take it one game at a time,” Rosson said. “We just refocused, had a good week of practice and came out here and executed.”
Next week’s playoff game against Navarro will be played at 3 p.m. The winner will then face the winner of the Blinn-Trinity Valley game for the SWJFC Championship on Nov. 9.
Photo by Rhonda Wright
