Whitehouse JV downs Henderson

The Whitehouse JV won a hard fought battle with Henderson last Thursday at Wildcat Stadium as they defeated the Lions 21-19.

The Lions tried to dig into their bag of tricks early this Halloween season as they tried an onside kick to start the game, but Whitehouse recovered to get good field position.

Unfortunately, the Wildcats could not take advantage of the early break and were forced to punt.

The Lions then took the punt and traveled 65 yards on the scoring drive but failed on another trick trying to get a twopoint conversion and held a 6-0 lead.

The Wildcat of fense struggled early to find the end zone as QB Preston Conder was picked off at the Lion 22 to stop one drive.

However, Josh McGill returned the favor for the Wildcats by picking off a pass to stop a Henderson drive at the Whitehouse 21 to keep the Wildcat deficit at six going into the half.

The Wildcat offense finally found its rhythm early in the third quarter as Conder found Logan Wright for a completion and a first down. That led to consecutive completions to Garrett Ehrman, and then a 25- yard strike over the middle to Jayme Antu, moved the ball deep into Lion territory.

After finding Ehrman once again to the Lion 10, Conder hit Julio Aleman for a ten-yard TD completion, and Aleman added the PAT to give the Cats the lead at 7-6.

On the Lions ensuing possession, a third down play went the way of the Cats as Logan Taylor forced a fumble that the Cats recovered at the Lion 47.

Conder then hit Antu on a pass to the six-yard line leading to a six-yard run by Aleman to extend the lead to 14-6 at the end of the third period.

The Lions got the score back quickly as they returned the ensuing kick off to the Whitehouse 43 and then scored on the next play on a 43-yard TD pass, but the two-point try was dropped in the end zone, and the Cats clung to a 14-12 lead.

Faced with trying to run valuable time off the clock, the Whitehouse offense went to work on its next possession. Facing a third and nine, Conder hit Aleman on a screen pass that produced a first down all the way to the Henderson 44.

The drive ended in a punt, but the Lions could not move the ball and were forced to punt back to the Wildcats, and Whitehouse received good field position on its own 41.

From there, the Wildcats moved the ball across midfield, and then Aleman ripped off a 30-yard run to the five and set up Conder for the five-yard scamper for the score to push the lead to a comfortable 21-12 with 2:49 left in the game.

On the next Henderson drive, Taylor picked off an errant pass, but the Cats could not move the ball, and Henderson was able to go down for a late score to finish the game at 21- 19.

The JV will take another step closer to a district title tonight as they play host to the Marshall Mavericks with game time set at 7:30 following the freshman game.