It wasn’t that Monticello’s defense was in lockdown mode. They still allowed Western quarterback Kent Henry and the Warriors’ offense to pile up 379 yards through the air and 29 points on the scoreboard.
But when it counted, the Mustangs were on point, using all the athletes at their disposal like Jhalil Mosley and T.J. Tillery for the first time all season to halt the Warriors in the fourth quarter and earn a spot in the Region II final.
“We knew coming into the game that we had to have our playmakers on the field at all times,” Mosley said.
Mosley and Tillery, the Mustangs’ starting quarterback and running back respectively, have played in spots defensively this year, but Friday they were unleashed for nearly the entire game. Both had a big impact.
Tillery haunted the Western backfield. He brought pressure up the middle relentlessly, including on a few key downs that forced Western into broken plays. As they often do, the Warriors converted a number of those broken plays into yards or points, but the pressure clearly had an impact, at the very least occasionally knocking the efficient Warriors out of rhythm. Tillery, for his part, was just thrilled to get a chance to get back to his defensive roots.
“I just really love defense so it was great to get over there,” Tillery said. “I was just ready to play defense.”
Mosley gave the Mustangs another much-needed defensive back — a commodity you can’t have enough of against the multi-faceted Western receiving corps. He bolstered an already athletic secondary and even came up with two plays on the final series, knocking down a pass in the end zone and then intercepting the final throw of the night with the game out of reach for Western.
“All night (the Western receivers) are going to deke and dodge you down the field,” Mosley said. “Five yards, 10 yards, five yards, 10 yards. We just had to keep our head and continue to do what we were coached to do in practice and it paid off in the long run.”
Monticello’s first team all-Jefferson District center Sam Marshall was among the other usual one-way standouts that saw time defensively, coming up with a sack on the Warriors’ final drive. The emergence of Sean Means, who also put a lot of pressure on Henry during the game, helped turn the tide for the Mustangs’ defense too.
The balance of the game, clearly, belonged to the Mustangs as they did enough to get the win and not allow Henry and the Western offense to beat them into submission. And neither Tillery nor Mosley missed a beat with regards to their offensive responsibilities. Tillery exploded for a 207-yard, three-touchdown night on the ground while Mosley went 9-for-12 for 134 yards and two touchdowns while also picking up a touchdown on the ground.
What’s perhaps most impressive is that Monticello coach Rodney Redd and his staff didn’t go to this set of personnel earlier, sitting and waiting, staying with his plan to unleash it at the right time.
He didn’t panic when Monticello lost two straight. He stayed the course and, now, it looks like he was right as the Mustangs are hosting a Region II final for the first time since the Mustangs won the 2007 state title five seasons ago.
“(Playing players like Mosley and Tillery on defense) is something we’ve have planned all along,” Redd said. “We really like to manage our personnel — knowing it’s a long season — to not beat kids up and play as many kids as possible to develop our talent and our depth, but it’s the playoffs now and we’ve got to put the guys on the field who are going to get the job done according to the matchup for that night.”
