The Central High School Bobcats started off slowly Friday night, but found their groove in the second half to beat the South Mountain Jaguars 33-19 at Ray Laing Field.

South Mountain (4-1) got off to a fast start over Central (2-2) in the non-conference game. After electing to kick off to start the game, Jaguars junior linebacker Cesar Caperon picked off an errant Andrew Taylor pass on the third play of the game and returned it for a touchdown to give South Mountain an early 7-0 lead.

The Jaguars’ aggressiveness would come back to hurt them later in the quarter. On their third drive of the game, South Mountain elected to go for the fourth down conversion with 10 yards to go, but starting quarterback Jeremiah Williams was picked off in the end zone.

n the next play, Central quarterback Andrew Taylor completed an 80-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Michael Majors to tie the game at 7 with 29.5 seconds left in the first quarter.

That’s all the stout Jaguars defense gave up the rest of the half, though, as South Mountain went into halftime holding on to a comfortable 19-7 lead.

Once South Mountain returned to the field, the wheels started to come off.

On the first drive of the quarter, Williams was sacked for a 9-yard loss, and had to leave the game with an injury, joining the Jaguars’ star running back Marlon Noralez on the bench.

“It really hurts when you have a 10-yard-per-carry running back out of the game, and then you have a quarterback that’s doing well in Jeremiah Williams,” Coach Mark Carter said. “Those are the guys that make us go.”

Jaguars junior quarterback Russvell Perez struggled coming off the bench in relief of Williams, completing only 3 of 14 pass attempts with three interceptions.

“My biggest problem was just staying focused,” Perez said. “I couldn’t stay focused. Next week just go hard in practice.”

The Bobcats scored 26 unanswered points to take a commanding 33-19 lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish.

“As a corner, if you get burned, you got to have amnesia,” Coach Marcus Carter said. “I think they just let the play before and the play before and the play before beat them. We pride ourselves on not giving up big plays, and we gave up too many big plays. We gave up about four or five big plays that led to scores.”

The biggest injury of the game was Central running back Alonzo Cortes, who was hurt on a play in the red zone with 2:50 left on the game clock in the fourth quarter.

After an extended period of time spent lying motionless on his back, an ambulance was called to take Cortes to the hospital. The game was ended shortly thereafter; the game clock still reading 2:50.