COLUMBIA, Mo. - After playing a back-and-forth battle with Rock Bridge that ended in a 32-21 defeat Friday night, the Jefferson City Jays were already thinking about a possible rematch with the Bruins in the district tournament.
The Jays huddled around coach Ted LePage, who told the players to turn around and watch the Rock Bridge celebration on the west end of the field near the band.
The Jays will have that image cemented in their minds until the postseason begins in four weeks.
"When we go back and watch film, I'm not so sure they are going to be real excited about playing us again," LePage said. "That game right there was won by big plays. We're going to shore that up, and the Jay Birds are going to be OK. We're going to alright.
"If our players practice again next week like we did this week and continue to learn, we're going to be OK."
Rock Bridge jumped from second to first in the District 3 standings, while Jefferson City went down a spot to eighth with three regular season games remaining.
The Jays would go back to Columbia to face the Bruins if they meet in the postseason.
The margin between first and last in the district - at least based on the scoreboard Friday - is 11 points.
What made the difference were explosive plays. All four of Rock Bridge's touchdowns were more than 60 yards.
Those four plays were the key to Rock Bridge improving its record to 5-1 and dropping Jefferson City to 2-4.
The last time the Bruins reached five victories was in 2013, when they made a run to the Class 6 state championship game.
"We played our tails off tonight," LePage said. "I am really proud of our football team. That's a really good football team. We were right there. Again, we're learning."
Rock Bridge quarterback Trevor Twehous had touchdown runs of 62 and 70 yards, both on fake handoffs to running back Nate Peat.
"We knew that would happen at some point in time," LePage said of allowing big plays. "What we didn't know what would happen is we would have a breakdown on the quarterback. There were two missed assignments, and we keep talking about that one situation where we have one guy make one mistake and it turns into a touchdown."
Twehous totaled minus-three yards on his other 12 rushing attempts. Peat finished with 116 yards on 22 carries, including a 73-yard run that required a broken tackle in the backfield and a number of other broken tackles near the line of scrimmage once he bounced it to the outside. The 5-foot-10, 185-pound back cut it back across the field where there was no one left to attempt to bring him down.
"Executing our defense," LePage said about stopping Peat. "It was simple, easy, executing our defense. The two times we didn't execute, the quarterback put it in the end zone."
Rock Bridge wasn't the only team gaining chunks of yardage at a time.
Devin Roberson completed 14-of-33 passes for 251 yards and two touchdowns. Five of his completions were for more than 20 yards.
Michael Ellinger caught four of those deep passes. His other catch was a 9-yard touchdown to give the Jays a 13-11 lead with 8:39 left in the third quarter. The senior finished with 158 yards, 83 more than he had in the first five games of the season.
"That's what we need," LePage said. "We don't have very many seniors, but the seniors we have are stepping up. We need the juniors to step up now."
After gaining 24 yards on 17 rushes, including a 9-yard touchdown by Roberson that followed a Rock Bridge fumble on the first play of the game, in the first half, the Jays went to the air to keep up with the Bruins.
Jefferson City threw it 25 times and ran it 12 in the second half. It worked for awhile, but two interceptions led to two Rock Bridge touchdowns.
The second ended up being the final score of the game, an 85-yard pass from Twehous to Reece Jarvis with 3:43 left in the game.
"We had a good game plan, we executed," LePage said. "I though Michael Ellinger played a great game. We did some really good things, but the issue I have is when we needed the play to make, we missed that one block, we missed that one thing.
"We're going to be alright. We've got to learn from this."
Up next for Jefferson City is No. 1 C.B.C. (5-1), which is coming off a 55-7 win at St. Louis University High.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m. Friday in St. Louis.