MANSFIELD — Mansfield Senior standout Jornell Manns has committed to play Big Ten football at Minnesota. On Friday night, he showed exactly why the Golden Gophers new coach, P.J. Fleck, was so excited to land that pledge.
Manns, playing at tailback, ripped off four touchdowns (two in each half), had another 70-yard scoring jaunt called back, and fueled the Tygers to a convincing 42-21 win over Columbus Northland on Friday night at Arlin Field.
“He’s a tremendous athlete who’s a natural running back,” Mansfield Senior coach Chioke Bradley said. “He always knows exactly what to do with the ball in his hands.”
Manns lined up at running back and receiver and the Vikings couldn’t get a handle on him at either spot. He posted 170 yards on 19 carries, added 66 yards on 5 catches and chipped in a 25-yard kickoff return for a total of 261 all-purpose yards.
“I think that’s the first time since the 6th grade (at running back in a game),” Manns said. “I was always a quarterback.
“I was going to play some running back last year but I dislocated my shoulder.”
The 6-foot, 190-pound senior struck first on a 10-yard touchdown bolt at the 7:27 mark of the first quarter, and tacked on a 22-yard broken-field TD dash with 5:21 showing in the opening period.
“(Jornell is) pretty good,” said Brian Statts, in his first year coaching the Vikings. “They do a really good job moving him around. It’s makes him pretty tough to defend.”
Meanwhile, the Tygers defense forced four turnovers on Northland’s first four possessions, including three fumbles. The Vikings had seven turnovers overall.
“The guys on this defense are pretty fast,” Bradley said. “The 2013 defense was pretty special, but this defense might be even faster.”
Division III Mansfield Senior and the Division IV Vikings were both coming off 6-4 campaigns, but the Tygers’ look to be a force in the smaller division this fall.
“That bunch is a pretty good football team,” Staats said. “They’re going to win a lot of football games.”
Northland’s best offense was its defense, which recorded a pair of pick-6s. Lavell Mitchell peeled off a 65-yard interception return for a TD in the second quarter, while teammate Mike Williams added a 103-yarder in the fourth period.
In between, it was all Mansfield Senior.
The Tygers took a 21-7 halftime lead after Manns’ 1-yard TD blast. Bradley’s bunch grabbed the second-half kickoff and smartly marched toward another score, with quarterback Sid Caudill finishing it on a 15-yard sprint.
Senior Norian Lindsay collected an interception at the Northland 24 and roared to paydirt for a 35-14 bulge heading to the final 12 minutes. Manns’ tacked on his last score, an 8-yard romp, with 10:53 to play.
“Jornell is determined to be great,” Bradley said. “He made that very clear all throughout the summer.”
Mansfield Senior finished with 394 yards of total offense and 20 first downs. The Vikings managed just 8 yards rushing.
Still, Bradley saw room for improvement. Senior High was just 1 of 10 on third down, was flagged six times for 54 yards and had a pair of interceptions returned all the way.
“We had way too many lapses,” Bradley said. “We spend a lot of time as a staff working on those things.”
That just gives the Tygers something to focus on this week before tangling with Sandusky Perkins on Friday night.
