Drahcir Jones took his first hand-off from Clairton quarterback Jeff Thompson Friday night and was promptly tackled by a host of Leechburg defenders.
“I think it was a negative-yard rush,” the Bears senior running back said. “After that, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s not happening again.’”
Jones was a man of his word.
The 5-foot-11, 186-pound running back carried the ball 12 times for 150 yards, two touchdowns, and added an interception from his safety position for good measure, as Clairton rolled to a critical 44-7 victory at Veterans Memorial Stadium to remain undefeated and hand host Leechburg it first loss of the season.
After his first run, Jones wasn’t dropped for a loss for the rest of the contest. He scored on a 36-yard run in the second quarter before taking the Bears’ final offensive play of the game 41 yards for a touchdown to seal the victory, which in all likelihood settled the Class 1A Eastern Conference championship.
“He’s just an exceptional kid,” said Bears coach Wayne Wade of Jones. “He gives us everything he has all the time. It’s a little disheartening to me because the kid’s a great student, he’s a great kid and he has no offers yet — not even D-II.
‘If you came to watch him play there’s no way, as a college coach, you wouldn’t say, ‘Man, I need that kid on my team.’”
Clairton (8-0, 5-0) stands alone in first place in the Eastern Conference ahead of Leechburg (7-1, 4-1) with games against Riverview and Brentwood left on its regular-season schedule. The Blue Devils still must face Brentwood and third-place Greensburg Central Catholic.
“It’s very important, but that’s not really our main goal,” Jones said. “The last couple of years we’ve won the conference, but we want bigger and better things.”
Jones said another aspect of Friday night’s victory might be weighing on his mind a little bit more.
Clairton’s defense went seven games and 31 quarters without conceding a point this season. The Bears gave up their first points of the year when Blue Devils junior running back Timmy Andrasy scored a touchdown on a 4-yard run with 11:11 left in the contest.
“It is upsetting, but at the same time, it’s football,” Jones said. “We were very fortunate to keep that streak for that long. Actually, for it to even happen this early is better now than going into the playoffs.”
Despite finally giving up a touchdown, the Clairton defense flexed its muscles early and often against a solid Leechburg team, which was 7-0 heading into the game for the first time in 43 years and scoring an average of 39 points per contest.
Bears junior linebacker Deon Pompey snagged a deflected pass and returned an interception 60 yards for the game’s opening touchdown.
Sophomore safety Jaece Booker also intercepted two passes to make Clairton plus-4 in the turnover margin in the game.
“We take so much pride in that,” said Jones of his team’s defense. “There’s so many dogs that came out of Clairton.”
The Bears defense tormented Leechburg senior quarterback Jayden Floyd for most of the contest. One of the WPIAL’s top dual-threat quarterbacks, Floyd was held to just 7 yards rushing Friday, while completing 8-of-23 passes for 82 yards.
Floyd now has 1,009 yards rushing this season.
“Our defense is extremely fast,” Wade said. “In a game of this magnitude, defense is where we can fly around and be aggressive and we showed that in the first half. I think we kind of pulled back a little bit in the second half and didn’t play as aggressive. We gave them a ton of penalties. We will clean that stuff up.
“Our defense is the strength of this team, … They say defense wins championships.”
And now Clairton, which is only allowing an average of 1.7 points per game, has a chance to be one of the greatest in Bears history, Wade said.
“We had a great defense in 2010,” he said. “I was privileged enough to coach a ton of D-I kids on that defense, but this defense collectively I think plays better. They’re just everywhere. They’re smothering everything. We had [four] picks tonight, nobody came close to picking this quarterback in the first seven games.”
Jones said that is high praise coming from Wade — who has 10 WPIAL championships to his credit, four as a head coach and six as the defensive coordinator when the Bears went on their record-breaking 66-game winning streak from 2009-13.
“I’m very proud to even hear that,” Jones said.
Wade is also plenty pleased with the play of Jones in his defensive backfield.
“He’s been playing much better at safety,” he said of Jones. “We kind of went to the two-high safeties and were rotating them and bringing one down in the box. His eyes have gotten better, his angles have gotten better; he’s really doing well for us back there on the back end of the D.”
Jones said he is looking forward to continuing his maturation process as the season progresses.
“I’ve been trying to stay more patient because I tend to get jittery,” he said. “I’ve been working way more on my eyes and my feet and just slowing the game down.”
Clairton also got two touchdowns from Donte Wright, who scored on a 38-yard, second-quarter run before returning the opening kickoff in the second half for a score.
Running back Mike Ruffing also added a 15-yard touchdown run for the Bears.
“We take ’em one at a time,” Wade said. “What we’re doing is moving on to next week.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.