Boyd, Thomas lead Tigers by St. Charles

The two-headed rushing attack of KeyShawn Boyd and Zai’Aire Thomas proved to be enough as the Tigers opened the 2023 season with a 35-33 win over the St. Charles Pirates on Friday at Cape Central High School.

Boyd erupted for 203 rushing yards on 11 carries while also finding the end zone four times to pace the offense.

“We’re really glad he’s on our side,” Tigers coach Kent Gibbs said. “He’s got deceptive speed to the outside but he can also bang it in there. We’re just glad he’s on our side.”

With Boyd filling the stat sheet on the offensive side, it was the Tigers defense that came up big to clinch the win.

The Pirates were in possession on 4th-and-3 with over a minute left and theywent back to the quarterback draw that had worked many times throughout the evening, but this time the Cape Central defense made the play to ice the game.

“We just said ‘Ok, this is the ballgame’,” Gibbs said. “We were able to get a better rush up front and did a better job of containing them and not letting them get outside on us.”

Boyd’s impressive evening started just over a minute into the game as he broke off a 55-yard run to make it 7-0 Tigers.

Just five minutes later, Boyd would find his way into the end zone again, this time from three-yards out to make it 14-0 Tigers.

At that point, it appeared the Tigers were going to have their way with the Pirates, but St. Charles fought back.

“We started really fast,” Gibbs said. “Credit to (St. Charles) they just kept playing and they made some big plays.”

Close to the halfway point of the second quarter the Pirates jumped on an errant snap that resulted in a St. Charles touchdown to make it 14-6 Tigers.

Despite the touchdown from the Pirates, the Tigers would enter the locker room at halftime with a 14-6 lead.

Out of the locker room, St. Charles would get the scoring started as Pirates quarterback Jordan Rowe used his speed to his advantage before connecting with Jeremiah Smith for a long touchdown to make it 14-12 Tigers.

“Once they found out they could run on the perimeter on us,” Gibbs said. “They just kept going back to the well. They played a heck of a game and their kids played really hard.”

As the game would go back-and-forth throughout the second half, Boyd and Thomas kept the Tigers offense afloat.

Thomas reeled off a 54-yard touchdown run to stretch the lead to 28-20 Tigers with just over four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

“We’re blessed to have two good tailbacks,” Gibbs said. “Both of them have been kind of beat up this summer but they played well tonight.”

Thomas tallied 158 rushing yards on 12 carries to go along with his third quarter score.

The final Tigers touchdown would come late in the third quarter when Boyd exploded for a 65-yard touchdown to make it 35-26 Tigers.

While the run game propelled the Tiger offense, they were forced to turn to backup quarterback Jathan Spain after starting quarterback Deklin Pittman suffered an injury in the first quarter.

Spain struggled early, but he bounced back in a big way and was able to lead the Tigers offense.

“I think we put a lot on (Spain) right there,” Gibbs said. “Jathan is going to be ok. He’s a football player.”

Cape Central (1-0) will return to action at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1, when they host Hillsboro at Cape Central High School.

“We have to learn from our mistakes and we have to be coachable,” Gibbs said. “We have to watch film and be critical of ourselves, even pat ourselves on the back if we deserve it, but be critical of ourselves and what we did wrong.”