VERO BEACH — Vero Beach outlasted Jensen Beach, 24-10, in a penalty-laiden pre-season contest Friday night. The two teams combined for 262 penalty yards on the game, including 60 for Vero Beach in the second quarter.
“We basically scored and moved the ball on every possession,” said Vero Beach High School football coach Lenny Jankowski. “That being said, you can’t really spend any time enjoying it, because of the undiscipline things (during the game). It was very uncharacteristic of our guys.”
Vero Beach quarterback Nick Madden threw for 99 yards in the first quarter alone, completing 10 of 14 passes in the process. His 23-yard dash in the third quarter was the longest for the Fighting Indians in the game.
Madden’s 20-yard pass to Jeremy Bell ended with Charlie Miller scooping up Bell’s fumble and taking it 12 yards for the game’s first score at 2:58 to play in the first quarter. Dentist Hall would score just under six minutes later when he ran for a seven-yard touchdown to make the score 14-0.
The game changed dramatically with Jensen Beach’s next possession, when ground out just over nine minutes during an 80-yard touchdown drive to make the score 14-7 with just 15.3 seconds left to play in the half.
Karson Dietrich’s 38-yard field goal for Vero Beach made the score 17-7 with 6:48 to go in the third quarter, and Jason Pierre’s 2-yard run gave Vero Beach a 24-7 lead with 9:43 left to play in the game.
Jenson Beach kicker Kevin Barry connected on a 33-yard field goal with just 4:09 left to play in the game to round out the scoring, making the final score 24-10.
“We kept a couple of drives alive for the other team tonight by making frustrating penalties,” Jankowski said. “We didn’t do a good job of getting their offense off the field so we could get ours on. But all in all, I know we’ll go to the film and see some great things out there. Grinding it out was part of their game plan as much as raising the tempo of the game is a part of ours.”
Vero Beach begins regular season play next Friday at home, when they play Port St. Lucie.
