Mansfield Timberview hits on all cylinders to down upstart Joshua in district contest
It was a young, inconsistent Mansfield Timberview football team against an upstart Joshua club at Newsom Stadium on Thursday night.
The Wolves had lost their District 5-5A Division 2 opener last week and had only one win on the season. The Owls were off to their best start since 2017 when they went 4-6.
In the end Timberview’s speed and stout defensive play ruled the day as the Wolves dominated Joshua 56-14.
Joshua came in at 3-1 overall and 1-0 in district after winning just four games in the past three seasons. The Owls have only won three or more games overall five times in the past two decades.
Six different Wolves scored touchdowns as Timberview (2-3 overall, 1-1 District 5-5A D2) scored on eight straight possessions, not including the drive that ran out the clock in the first half.
Joshua (3-2, 1-1) forced a Timberview fumble on the Wolves’ first possession and Josh Johnson pounced on it at the Owls’ 31. But Joshua was forced to punt for the second time in the first six minutes and the onslaught began.
Cemarion Chambliss made a terrific one-handed catch from quarterback Cameron Bates that turned into a 71-yard TD to open the scoring. A 1-yard scoring run Javeon Madison and a 43-yard touchdown run by Jarvis Reed gave Timberview a 21-0 lead with 10:02 left in the second quarter.
Reed’s score came on a fourth-and-4 from the Joshua 43 where he bulled his way to a first down before shaking a couple of tackles and out raced the Owls’ secondary to the end zone.
Joshua finally got a spark when sophomore Will Kohler returned the ensuing kickoff 46 yards to the Timberview 32. On fourth down, freshman quarterback Jaydin Pool lateraled to Drew DeArman, who tossed a 19-yard scoring pass to Aiden Raccuglia to cut the lead to 21-6 with 7:18 left before halftime.
That would be the only time that the Owls would venture into Timberview territory until late in the game when backups took over.
The Wolves followed with an 11-play, 77-yard march capped by Reed’s second TD, a 2-yard run.
Timberview coach James Brown knew his team would have its ups and downs this season after graduating 41 seniors, 23 who are playing college football right now. Only three or four of his seniors this year even played on the varsity last season.
“We’re still really young and we made a bunch of mistakes over the first four games,” said Brown, whose team lost two games by a total of three points. “We’re not quite there yet, but I thought, especially on defense, that we played a lot better today.”
One senior that Brown is counting on to anchor the Wolves defense is Oregon commit Landon Hullaby, who helped Timberview hold Joshua to 85 total yards before substitutions came in to finish the game.
“It feels good that I get to be a leader and help the young dudes and showing them how to step up,” said Hullaby. “This was a good team win, but there are some things that we need to clean up on both sides of the ball. But it was a good overall win.”
Joshua went for it on fourth down six times in the game with five coming on the Owls’ end of the field. Joshua lost the ball on downs four times.
Timberview’s speed and balance led to two second-half touchdowns by running back D.J. Hill from 1 and 27 yards out. Jaeden Marshall rotated with Bates at quarterback and had TD passes of 16 yards to Titus Evans and 24 yards to Braylon Jones in the second half.
Timberview had 253 yards rushing on 37 carries and 269 passing yards on an efficient 12 of 15. Marshall finished with nine completions in 10 attempts for 156 yards and Bates added 113 yards completing 3 of 5 passes. Chambliss led the Wolves with three receptions for 123 yards and Reed finished with 100 rushing yards on nine carries
Kolby Smith was the work horse for Joshua with 119 yards rushing on 26 carries, but 77 of that came after the Timberview starters were relieved. Smith had a 68-yard scoring run with 1:14 left in the game.
“I think that Danny (Joshua coach Danny DeArman) is doing a really good job with them,” said Brown. “The fact that he went for it on those fourth downs and the onside kick late in the game I think was to just let his kids not give up and change the culture and mentality over there.
“I think he’s getting to that point. They were a lot better and a lot more of a physical team than they were last year. I think that our speed showed a little bit more tonight than what they had seen in the first four games, so I think that was a big advantage for us.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 12:19 AM.