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With a few minutes left before the start of the second half and his team trailing 7-6 to host Northwest High, Springbrook two-way lineman Ray Vernet exhorted his football teammates to pick up their performance.

"We worked too hard for this," Vernet shouted on the sideline for anyone and everyone to hear. "All of those two-a-days. We worked too hard for this."

On cue, Vernet and his teammates responded with a dominating half of football to turn that one-point deficit into a 20-7 victory and improve to 2-0 on the season.

Northwest, meanwhile, dropped to 0-2 (0-1 in the Montgomery 4A West Division), putting the Jaguars in an early hole in their quest for postseason action.

"[Vernet] always motivates us," said Blue Devils tailback Devon Pestano, who rushed for 164 yards and all three of his team's touchdowns on 29 carries. "He just gets us going before games, after games and at practices. He's our motor."

Springbrook squandered solid field position in the first half, and was in a hole almost immediately. Northwest scored the opening touchdown on its first play from scrimmage, an 82-yard pass from senior quarterback Jarrhett Butler to Detrick Hoes.

The story changed completely in the second 24 minutes.

Defensively, led by linebacker Marquise Anderson and defensive back Chris Tolbert (two interceptions), Springbrook limited the Jaguars to 18 yards in the third quarter and 84 yards for the entire second half. Tolbert, burned by Hoes on the Jaguars' touchdown, halted Northwest's final drive at the 37-yard line with an interception.

"Chris Tolbert got beat and then he comes back and gets two interceptions," Blue Devils coach Rob Wendel said. "Our defensive coordinator [John Haberman] did a hell of a job. He's been around for a while. He knows what he's doing."

Offensively, Springbrook went exclusively to the ground, picking up 127 yards and 2 touchdowns on 19 carries behind the blocking of Lam Ngo, Churchill Ndonwie and Errol Brewster. Pestano broke off a 48-yard touchdown run with 9 minutes, 15 seconds left in the third quarter for a 12-7 lead. The Blue Devils missed a pair of 2-point conversion tries.

Pestano, who also scored from a yard out in the first half, reached the end zone again with 10:31 left in the game on a 5-yard run. That score plus a successful 2-point try pushed the advantage to 20-7.

"In the second half, our coaches told us we were going to keep pounding it down their throat and we did that," Pestano said.

The Jaguars twice drove deep inside Springbrook territory, but were denied on downs at the 15-yard line and at the 37 by the interception.

"We have a lot of stuff to work on," said Butler, who completed 8 of 23 passes for 102 yards.