Henry Daily Herald

Photo by Jason Mussell / Dutchtown’s Tremond Gates (39) and Joshua Baylor (13) make a tackle in the Bulldogs’ 52-22 victory Friday against Eagle’s Landing at home.

HAMPTON — It was homecoming at Dutchtown, and a major coming-out party for Bulldog quarterback Donovahn Jones.

Jones smashed several school records, passing for 398 yards and six touchdowns and Dutchtown set a single-game school scoring record in crushing the Eagle’s Landing Golden Eagles 52-22 in a Region 4-AAAA, Division A game.

Again, it was the defense that let the Golden Eagles (0-7, 0-2) down. Eagle’s Landing quarterback Bradley Dewberry had a solid effort, completing 20 of 25 passes for 283 yards and one touchdown. But a Bulldog interception by Quinton Pressley and two lost fumbles by the Golden Eagles helped doom the respectable offensive effort. The Golden Eagles’ defense yielded eight plays of 20 yards or more, as Dutchtown (5-2, 1-1) had its way.

The 48-minute-long first quarter — only 12 of which was game time — saw four lead changes, ending with Dutchtown leading 17-14. The remainder of the game belonged to the Bulldogs, led by the amazing efforts of Jones, who had 304 yards passing by halftime. He tossed TD passes of 4, 59, 12, 20, and 5 yards in the first half, after which Dutchtown led 38-22. The Bulldog defense had some trouble, however, with Eagle’s Landing’s hurry-up offense. Dewberry was fairly successful in his rollout passes and Golden Eagle running back Corey Holloway ran eight times for 61 yards in the first half. Holloway added nine carries for 69 more yards in the second half, finishing with 17 carries and 130 yards.

Eagles’ Landing scored on runs of 2 and 11 yards by Dewberry and a 59-yard TD strike from Dewberry to Warren Wright. The second half, however, was not so kind to Eagle’s Landing. The Bulldog defense did just enough to prevent points, while the offense scored twice more. Wright caught nine passes for 177 yards.

Jones added a sixth TD pass in the third quarter, hitting Malik Barkley for 5 yards. Then, after stopping Eagle’s Landing deep in Dutchtown territory, Jones was content to hand the ball to Will Smith, who ran 10 times in an 11-play fourth-quarter scoring drive. Smith gained 75 yards in that drive alone, and his game total was a solid 84 yards on 15 rushes. Brandon Thomas caught six passes for 127 yards for the Dogs.

The game nearly had an extreme oddity: There were no punts until a Dutchtown punt with two minutes left.