Cedar Rapids Jefferson shows grit in 49-7 loss to Davenport Central

DAVENPORT — The outcome was never in doubt after Dylan Graves returned the opening kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown Thursday night.

Still, Ben Sacco and the Davenport Central football team didn’t walk off the turf at Brady Street Stadium completely satisfied with how things transpired in a 49-7 prep football triumph over Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

Jefferson, with just 19 varsity players in uniform, managed to rush for 252 yards, ran twice the number of offensive plays as Central and compiled 17 first downs.

“We didn’t play very sound, especially on defense,” Sacco said. “I thought (Jefferson) was much better at the line of scrimmage than us. If we’re going to win more football games down the road, how we practice and how we go about football has to change.

“It has to be more business-like or the rest of our season is going to be rough.”

Sacco said his team had a very poor week of practice. Several players missed Monday’s holiday workout and Tuesday’s session was not sharp.

“We saw Jefferson had been outscored (147-0) the first two games and we walked through practice like it was going to be an easy win,” Graves said. “We can’t be like that.”

Jefferson scored its first points of the season on the final play of the first half, a 27-yard touchdown pass from Kay’Zure Lewis to Andreas Williams that went through a Central defender’s hands.

Despite a shortage of bodies, Jefferson continued to plug away and finished the game with 313 yards. It was undone on offense by nine fumbles (three lost).

“Jefferson has some really good players, but they’ve only got like 20 guys,” Sacco said. “That is a tough situation for them because you can’t practice scout team during the week. They played really hard tonight, and I didn’t feel our guys were ready to play this week.”

Lewis had 98 yards on the ground and Frank Budederi rushed for 79.