MACLENNY – The Ed White Commanders traveled to Memorial Stadium in Macclenny to face the Baker County Wildcats in an intriguing Week 2 matchup.<\/p>\n
It was the first meeting in decades, between these two public schools located\u00a0only 25 miles apart.<\/span><\/p>\n The game started out as a defensive battle.<\/p>\n After the Commanders fumbled on their first drive, Baker County was unable to capitalize. A series later, the Wildcats got down to the 25 but came up short again. Although the Wildcats were unable to score early, they sustained a definitive field position advantage. In fact, every snap in the first quarter took place on the east end of the 50 yard line, in Wildcat territory.<\/p>\n Halfway through the second quarter, they were finally able to take advantage of the field position advantage when quarterback Noah Carter hit Lee\u00a0Graham on a 19 yard touchdown pass in the right corner of the end zone.<\/p>\n After a 3 and out for Ed White, the Wildcats looked to take the momentum to another level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As Carter dropped back, he looked in Graham’s direction once again, this time they would connect for a 55 yard score. Although there appeared to be good coverage from two defenders, Carter launched a deep throw without any hesitation. <\/span><\/p>\n Lee Graham described the design of the play: “That was a matter of my quarterback having faith in me and trusting that I would make a play”. <\/span><\/p>\n His faith paid off, as Graham outran 2 defenders in a decisive path to the ball; catching it in stride and cruising to the end zone to put the Wildcats up 14 points before halftime.<\/span><\/p>\n Ed White looked like they might answer with a nice methodical drive, but they fell short when linebacker\u00a0Kelton Knabb intercepted a screen pass around the 30 yard line.<\/span><\/p>\n In the third quarter, both defenses remained reluctant to give up many rushing yards. However, the Wildcats turned to the air\u00a0once again. <\/span><\/p>\n With 10:37 remaining in the quarter, Carter threw a well timed out route to Graham. An Ed White defender gambled and went for the pick off, but in this game of inches, a couple inches meant all the difference. Graham spun up the field uncontested and had one man left to beat as he dashed down the sideline for a 65 yard TD reception.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “Overall, it was a great team victory” Graham stated. <\/span><\/p>\n This was definitely an accurate statement. The Defense pitched a shutout for the majority of the night. All night long, they were able to corral standout runningback Caleb Steward (a Virginia Tech commit), while also creating 2 turnovers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the 4th quarter, both teams traded rushing touchdowns to bring the final score to 28-7. Both teams now have a record of 1-1.<\/span><\/p>\n As the final horn sounded and the teams shook hands, a series of thunder and rapid lightning strikes began to come over Memorial Stadium. But it was the thunderous defense and lightning quick offensive strikes from Lee Graham & company that Wildcat fans will remember most on this night.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MACLENNY – The Ed White Commanders traveled to Memorial Stadium in Macclenny to face the Baker County Wildcats in an intriguing Week 2 matchup. It was the first meeting in decades, between these two public schools located\u00a0only 25 miles apart. The game started out as a defensive battle. After the Commanders fumbled on their first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":628,"featured_media":30176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[232,81,303],"class_list":["post-30172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school","tag-baker-county","tag-ed-white","tag-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Baker-County-3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duvalsports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}