PALM COAST - Behind back-to-back 50 yard touchdown romps from running back JoJo Restall, the Orange Park High Raiders trounced Matanzas 44-14 Friday in a non-district match at Matanzas High School.

“I just keep running hard behind my blockers; Roderick Kearney and Braylon Hawkins, and look for a breakout point,” said Restall, who finished with 188 yards on the night. “We go pretty straight forward left and right and keep the defenses off guard because the linemen can switch sides. Our wide receivers are good downfield blockers too.”

Orange Park needed to return to its rugged football history, said coach Tom Macpherson, but the need versus the accomplish comes with the focused effort of the team.

“We want to return to Raider football which is in your face, rough and strong and tough defense,” said Macpherson. “The first 14 minutes of this game looked like Orange Park football, but the next 10 minutes, we lost that focus. Football is a 48 minute commit to execution and discipline. This was a good game for us returning to that standard.”

On defense, linebacker Britton Roberts was the main chaos creator for the Raider defense with numerous plays on the Pirate side of the scrimmage line.

“When the run game is strong, the defense follows because the momentum of a strong effort gets picked up by both sides,” said Macpherson.

Orange Park scored first off a run by quarterback Tavien Wilkerson, who hit wideouts Brian Green (5-25 Yds) and Nolan Chambers (4-92 Yds, 2TDs) with key chain-moving passes most of the first half to move the ball, used his legs to leap over three Pirate tacklers to paydirt to put Orange Park on the scoreboard. Wilkerson would score his second touchdown of the half just as the second quarter started to give the Raiders some initial momentum.

Restall got his first 50 yarder on the Raiders next series to put Orange Park up 21-0 at 8:15.

On the ensuing kickoff, Matanzas ripped the return to paydirt, but penalty flags put the Pirates back at their own 25.

A deep pass to Pirate wide out Noah Cundiff put Matanzas at the Raider 40 before Roberts got his first sack of the night for a loss of 10 yards. Matanzas would score off a 48 yard screen pass a play later.

With four minutes to halftime, Orange Park got added yards from Matanzas penalty flags for offsides before a fourth and two to go at midfield turned into disaster.

“We wanted to freeze and try and pull them offside first, then call time out then punt, pretty simple, but we lost our focus and the ball was snapped without a play called,” said Macpherson. “They jumped offsides four times before that. A frustrating series of events that good teams don’t do; situational football.”

Orange Park held Matanzas out of the end zone to end the half.

In the third quarter, Chambers snared a touchdown pass from Elijah Craggette at quarterback to go to 29-7 with six minutes left in the period.

On the Raiders next series, Restall blasted his second 50 yarder, at 3:26 to go up 37-7 in the third, with a nifty tiptoe on the sideline from the five yard line to the end zone.

A pass interference in the end zone by the Raider defense gave Matanzas their second score off a pass play from the two yard line at 2:23 left in the game.