Indians' passing lights up the sky

~ Jackson throws for two touchdowns in Friday night's jamboree.

FARMINGTON -- The timing between Jackson's Marcus Harris and Matt Lang looked impeccable during Friday night's football jamboree.

The Indians' duo struck for two touchdowns against St. Clair in Jackson's jamboree opening session on the rainy FieldTurf at Farmington High School.

"We were just doing the things we do in practice," said Harris, the Indians quarterback. "It was really nothing out of the ordinary, dropped back and throw the ball."

Lang hauled in scoring passes of 37 yards and 15 yards against St. Clair. On the 37-yard strike, he got behind the defense, went up and caught the ball over the defender, then scampered into the end zone for the score.

"The feeling's great, but hopefully we can do it in the season," Lang said. "It's not the season yet."

Harris, a junior, said the key to making the passes to Lang look easy is practice. He said it's taken time to get to the point where he can predict Lang's movement.

"We just practice over and over, throwing it and knowing where he's going to be and knowing what he's going to run and try to catch the ball," Harris said.

Lang agreed the hours of practice helped, but he also complemented his quarterback's skill.

"Marcus throws them good," he said.

Jackson faced Farmington in its second session and stayed on the ground for all of its offensive possessions with the first-team offense. The one time the Indians tried to throw the ball, Harris slipped while pulling out from behind center and ended up getting sacked.

The Indians ran the ball effectively against Farmington, gaining 30 yards on their first three runs. They capped the drive on Andy Winkleblack's 1-yard scoring run. He also scored against Central in Jackson's final session.

Even though Jackson's offense scored against all three defenses it faced, Lang said there are improvements that need to be made for next week's season opener.

"We didn't wrap up as good as we should on defense, and on offense we didn't hit our blocks as good as we should," he said. "We have a week left."

While Jackson's quarterback looked comfortable on the field, the Central Tigers didn't get a chance to test their new quarterback.

"We looked ragged early on," Central coach Lawrence Brookins said. "It was just nerves, jitters. Our starting quarterback got injured [Thursday] night on the last play of our defensive walk through."

The Tigers fumbled three snaps on their opening offensive session against Farmington.

Brookins was quick to say that he doesn't expect Tigers starting quarterback Chase Johnson to be sidelined long.

"Chase should be back for the Parkway North game, so that should help us out, too," he said.

One of the bright spots for the Tigers was their defense. Raymond Woldtvedt intercepted a pass inside the 5-yard line against St. Clair, and Cantrell Andrews picked off a pass against Farmington.

Central's defense did surrender some big plays though, including three scoring plays of 20 yards or more against St. Clair.

On offense, Tigers running back Derek Walker showcased his speed and power. He made a habit of running over potential tacklers and away from defensive linemen.

"It got smoother as the night went on," Brookins said of his offense.

The jamboree format allows teams to play 12 offensive plays and 12 defensive plays against three different teams, with each scrimmage session utilizing half of a field. There are no special teams plays. The two jamborees at Farmington were delayed more than an hour by a thunderstorm.