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Porter's Chapel Academy's Jase Jung runs for a 63-yard touchdown Friday against Hillcrest Christian. On the play, Jung broke the Warren County single-season and career rushing yardage records that had been held by Warren Central's Brian Darden since 1994. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Jase Jung (3) walks off the field with head coach Blake Purvis after breaking the Warren County single-season and career rushing yardage record Friday against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy football players and coaches face a giant American flag suspended from a Vicksburg Fire Department ladder truck as the national anthem is sung before Friday's homecoming game agaisnt Hillcrest Christian. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Sophie Masterson, right, stands alongside her father Dr. Calvin Masterson after being crowned as Porter's Chapel Academy's 2024 homecoming queen at halftime of Friday's football game against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's homecoming court stands at midfield during a halftime ceremony at Friday's football game against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy assistant coach Chris Simms, left, talks to his son, lineman Hunter Simms (4) during Friday's game against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Jase Jung runs for a touchdown Friday against Hillcrest Christian. Jung finished with 284 yards and five touchdowns, and broke the Warren County single-season and career rushing yardage records that had been held by Warren Central's Brian Darden since 1994. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Sophie Masterson is crowned as Porter's Chapel Academy's 2024 homecoming queen at halftime of Friday's football game against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Sophie Masterson rides in a car with Layla Barfield and Beckett Sumrall during Porter's Chapel Academy's 2024 homecoming ceremony on Friday. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Miss Mississippi 2024 Becky Williams sings the national anthem before Porter's Chapel Academy's homecoming football game Friday against Hillcrest Christian. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Auston Moore, right, stiff-arms Hillcrest Christian's Deon Thurman (20) on his way to scoring on a two-point conversion run. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Grayson Price (10) runs with the football during Friday's game against Hillcrest Christian. Price scored two touchdowns as the Eagles won 62-20. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's 2024 homecoming court hangs out behind the end zone during Friday's football game against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Henry Slayton tackles Hillcrest Christian quarterback DJ Thomas (7) during Friday's game. Slayton finished with five tackles and one sack as PCA won 62-20. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy defenders Conley Johnston (54) and Morris Bailey (23) close in on Hillcrest Christian quarterback DJ Thomas during Friday's game. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

A plane from the Southern Heritage Air Foundation performs a flyover before Porter's Chapel Academy's homecoming football game Friday against Hillcrest Christian. (Walter Frazier/For The Vicksburg Post)

Jase Jung had one last chance to make history Friday night.

He huddled with his Porter’s Chapel Academy teammates, called their best and favorite running play, and waited for the snap. His linemen blocked it perfectly, and when the hole opened up he ran through it to the end zone and into the record books.

Jung’s 63-yard touchdown in the third quarter served as the exclamation point on Porter’s Chapel’s 62-20 victory over Hillcrest Christian and, more importantly, made him Warren County’s all-time rushing yardage leader.

Jung surpassed the single-season record of 2,238 yards that Warren Central’s Brian Darden had in 1994, as well as the 4,919 career yards Darden piled up from 1992-94, all in one shot.

Jung now has 2,266 yards this season and 4,976 for his career.

“It feels good,” said Jung, who finished the game with 284 yards and five touchdowns. “Coming into the game, I think it was Monday that I figured out I was coming close to the record so I was like, ‘All right, Friday I’m going to set this record and I’m going to get it out of the way, and then I’m going to move on.’”

PCA (5-3, 2-0 MAIS District 3-2A) did not have a hard time winning the game. It led 38-6 at the end of the first quarter, and its defense registered eight sacks while holding Hillcrest (1-6, 0-2) to 78 total yards.

Hillcrest’s team yardage total was affected by the sacks and two bad snaps that lost a total of 44 yards. Even with the sack yardage subtracted, quarterback DJ Thomas rushed for 125 yards and three touchdowns.

The dominance made Jung’s pursuit of Darden’s records more difficult, though. PCA started four of its seven first-half drives in Hillcrest territory, which limited Jung’s chances to pile up yards.

“It was pretty hard because our defense was stopping them on short field position, so we’d get, like, 20 yards,” Jung said with a laugh. “(Head coach Blake Purvis) was like, ‘Stop blitzing so we can get this record out of the way.”

Jung still got the job done. He had 11 carries for 221 yards and four touchdowns in the first half — one of his rushes was a kneeldown on the final play that lost five yards — and the Eagles went into halftime ahead 44-6.

A running clock kicked in for the second half because of PCA’s huge lead, so Purvis gave Jung one more series to get the last seven yards he needed for the career record, and the 27 he needed for the season record.

Jung only needed the one play. He took the snap and ran nearly untouched up the middle of Hillcrest’s defense for the 63-yard touchdown that set both records in style.

“At halftime I was 20 yards away, and seven yards away from something else, and coach came up to me and said, ‘OK, you’ve got one play,’” Jung said. “I said let me go figure out my favorite play, and I already knew what it was — Tiger 14 ISO, the same thing we run all the time. We broke the huddle, they blocked it right and I scored and it just felt great.”

Jung said running toward the end zone where PCA’s homecoming court was seated added to the moment. He was mobbed by his teammates, and the game was stopped briefly so Purvis could give him the game ball.

“It was great. Especially going into our end zone, with everybody there, everybody screaming my name, it felt good. Like a dream come true,” Jung said.

Jung’s touchdown was one of only two plays that PCA ran in the second half. The other was a 38-yard TD run by Grayson Price on the final play of the third quarter.

Price also had a 4-yard TD in the first half, and Auston Moore broke a 47-yarder. PCA finished with 373 rushing yards as a team.

“I love watching Jase succeed,” said PCA lineman Conley Johnston, who had three sacks on defense and helped clear holes for Jung and the other backs on offense. “I’m going to say Jase is the best running back in 2A, and we have the best front five. You combine those two and we can run over anybody.”

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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