TJ Johnson Leads Lee County Past Union Pines 56-14

Junior Running Back TJ Johnson ran for 208 yards on 21 carries and four touchdowns to lead Lee County to a convincing 56-14 win at Union Pines Friday night.  The win was the 17^th consecutive conference win for Lee County and starts the Yellow Jackets atop the Tri-County 3A Conference.   Johnson scored on Lee’s first possession from 3 yards out to put Lee up 7-0, only to have Diego Guevara scoop up a fumble 9 seconds later and return it 28 yards for a 14-0 lead.   Union Pines closed to within 14-7 after a 9-yard touchdown pass from Micah Monahan to Ethen Biggs.   But it was all Lee County from there as the Yellow Jackets scored in a variety of ways to build a huge 2^nd half lead.   Junior QB Will Patterson was 13 of 20 passing for 201 yards and 2 TD’s and the Jacket defense scored twice – Geuvara’s return and blocked punt recovered in the end zone by DE Landon Johnson for the other.     

Lee County (3-0, 1-0) will play its first home game of the season next Friday night at Paul Gay Stadium against Harnett Central (1-3, 1-1).   Lee County is now home for 3 of its final 4 games – the only road game left is at Southern Lee.

Scoring

Lee County     14     14     14     14     56

Union Pines     7       0       7        0      14

Scoring Summary

LC – TJ Johnson 3 run (Kennedy Hernandez kick)

LC – Diego Guevara 28 yard fumble return (Hernandez kick)

UP – Monahan 9 pass to Biggs (Blatz kick)

LC – Will Patterson 17 pass to Kenyon Palmer (Hernandez kick)

LC – TJ Johnson 9 run (Hernandez kick)

LC – Patterson 19 pass to Jackson Lamb (Hernandez kick)

UP – Josh Eberhart returned blocked punt 42 yards (Blatz kick)

LC – TJ Johnson 14 run (Hernandez kick)

LC – TJ Johnson 5 run (Hernandez kick)

LC – Landon Johnson recovered blocked punt in end zone (Hernandez kick)

Rushing

LC – TJ Johnson 21-208, JoJo Jennings 7-21, Patterson 5-(-24) Total 33-205

UP – Davis 2-6, Schaper 5-12, Biggs 1-12, Croser 1-(-16), Monihan 8-(-72), Finklestein 3-(-22) Totals 20-(-58)

Passing

LC – Patterson 13-20-201

UP – Monahan 17-34-226, Finklestein 2-2-19  Totals 19-37-245

Receiving

LC – Tyric McKendall 4-55, Palmer 4-68, Garrison 2-42, Lamb 2-22, Jennings 1-14   Totals 13-201

UP –  Biggs 7-100, Jones 6-69, Allbrooks 2-6, Wright 2-56, Davis 2-14   Totals 19-245

**TJ Johnson was selected as the Normann Financial Group Offensive Player of the game and Derran McKoy was selected as the Defensive Player of the Game.

**Lee County had 20 first downs to 9 for Union Pines and 406 yards of total offense to 187 for Union Pines.   Kennedy Hernandez was 8 of 8 on PAT’s.

***Lee County won the turnover battle 2-1 and now stand at +8 in turnovers through 3 games.

**The Lee County defense held Union Pines to 17 yards of total offense in the 2^nd half.