No. 1 Shadow Ridge pulls away from No. 2 Liberty in flag football
When Shadow Ridge’s flag football team lost to Liberty at a tournament in Mesquite in December, the Mustangs were without sophomore Jaylani Palmer.
A two-way standout, Palmer made a difference when the Mustangs and Patriots met for their lone regular-season meeting.
Palmer caught two touchdown passes and had an interception on defense that Shadow Ridge turned into a score to lead the Mustangs, No. 1 in the Review-Journal’s Class 5A rankings, to a 32-18 win at No. 2 Liberty on Thursday night.
Liberty won the previous meeting 20-13.
“It was a really great team effort,” Shadow Ridge coach Matt Nighswonger said. “We had a lot of different girls make plays. They played a really unselfish game.”
Senior Kyla Moore rushed for 115 yards and a touchdown for Shadow Ridge (10-1, 4-0 5A Southern League), which has won the last two 5A state titles. Palmer caught touchdowns of 1 and 8 yards and was one of three Mustang receivers who caught a touchdown.
“Now we know more about (Liberty), and (the win) is giving us a confidence boost we can drive all the way to the playoffs,” Palmer said. “We could play them again, but right now we have home-field advantage if we get the No. 1 seed. This game mattered the most.”
Aubree Davis and Chloe Covington each threw two touchdown passes as Shadow Ridge played both quarterbacks to give Liberty (9-4, 3-1) different looks, Nighswonger said.
Palmer caught her second touchdown, an 8-yarder from Covington, midway through the third quarter as Shadow Ridge’s lead grew to 26-12. Liberty answered when Portlynn Stacey, who replaced an injured Kaylie Phillips, found Sienna Maisano for a 4-yard score but still trailed 26-18 after the failed point-after attempt.
Shadow Ridge sealed the win when Jyniah Sanders intercepted Stacey in the fourth quarter, and Moore scored on a 12-yard run for the game’s final points.
“I wanted to get us some different looks, get the ball in different people’s hands and make it hard for (Liberty) to know what we were doing,” Nighswonger said. “We made adjustments on both sides (from the first meeting), and the girls stepped up and executed.”
With Shadow Ridge holding a one-point lead late in the second quarter, Palmer intercepted Phillips with the Patriots driving at the Mustangs’ 6-yard line.
Six plays later, Chloe Covington hit Abby Covington on a 5-yard touchdown pass to give Shadow Ridge a 19-12 halftime lead.
Phillips threw two first-quarter touchdown passes, both 5 yards, to Porsha Pitts and Kiona Westerlund before exiting in the third quarter. Sanders caught a 5-yard touchdown pass from Davis with four minutes left in the second quarter as Shadow Ridge regained the lead at 13-12 and never gave it back.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
