Jacobs, Rustin run over Interboro
WESTTOWN — The visiting team came to town after back-to-back losses to squads ranked No. 3 and No. 2 in the PIAA District 1 Class 5A standings.
The home team held down the No. 4 position in those same rankings.
Interboro (1-5) gave up a touchdown to host West Chester Rustin (4-1) before the game was 15 seconds old, allowed two more scores before the first quarter came to an end and dropped a 42-14 decision to the Golden Knights in a Del Val/Ches-Mont crossover game Friday night.
Rustin senior Dayshawn Jacobs set the tone with a 60-yard TD dash on his team’s first play from scrimmage, starting the run going to his right then cutting back as he made would-be tacklers miss on his way to the end zone.
He added another six points with a short plunge six minutes later, and Kolbe Freney teamed with Nathan Miscichowski on a 63-yard touchdown pass following an Interboro fumble late in the quarter.
Jacobs carried the ball 15 times and finished with 184 yards rushing and five touchdowns. In the second quarter, had caught a 49-yard TD pass from Freney and had runs of 20 and 45 yards that both put six more points on the scoreboard.
“Dayshawn was just being Dayshawn,” Rustin coach Mike St. Clair, who played under coach Bob Fithian at Sun Valley High, said. “We knew we were playing against a very physical, well-coached team and we had to turn up the intensity.”
Interboro coach Dennis Lux understood that his team was facing a squad which will be a strong contender in the district playoffs next month.
“No one can question our schedule,” Lux said. “We’ve played three of the top five (Class 5A) teams (Chester, Unionville, Rustin) in the last three weeks.
“(Rustin) is too good a team to make the kind of mistakes and turnovers we made. We’re a momentum team, and when we’ve been able to get up some momentum in other games, we’ve gotten on a roll. Today we played a team you can’t keep giving chances to.”
One of Rustin’s second-quarter scores came after Interboro failed to cover a kickoff and lost the ball, and another followed an interception by Daimon Jacobs, Dayshawn’s younger brother.
Interboro junior Abu Kamara (15 carries, 90 yards) finished off a 76-yard drive with a short touchdown run early in the second quarter and had a 38-yard TD dash in the third quarter.
“We knew what a good back he was,” St. Clair said. “Steve Walsh, our defensive coordinator, really set things up well for us today. And our offensive line really stepped up, especially after we lost one of our starters (Carter Bucci) with an injury.”
Dayshawn Jacobs gave plenty of credit to his offensive linemen.
“The holes were huge,” he said. “(Alfredo) Flores came in and really did a good job after we lost Carter. We didn’t care what their record was. We knew that they played a tough schedule and that we were going up against a good team. We beat Downingtown East last week, and there are other teams that might not have stayed mentally strong the next week playing a team with the record (Interboro) has. But we knew this couldn’t do that, and that’s why this is a big win for us.”
Kamara, whose team fell by one point at Chester in its Del Val League opener, said the Bucs would spend a week focusing on getting back to winning when they resume league play at Chichester next weekend.
“We need to practice and work hard,” he said. “That’s how we’re going to make things come out right for us. The way to do that is to always have the mindset to play hard. We can’t dwell on how this game came out. We’ve got another (league) game to start getting ready for.”
