Cedar Rapids Prairie seniors Jace Hanna and Jarred Edmonds have been tossing a football around since they were in middle school.

It paid off handsomely Friday night.

Hanna connected with his buddy for three touchdown passes as Prairie clipped Jefferson, 28-7, in the season opener at John Wall Field.

Hanna and Edmonds have been on the same team since eighth grade, playing pitch and catch.

"Ever since then we've been pretty tight on the field," Edmonds said after catching five passes for 170 yards. "We call each other 'The Combo.'

"It's a good combo," he added with a smile.

"The Combo" handed the J-Hawks their 23rd straight loss and spoiled Brian Webb's debut as Jefferson's new head coach, but the visitors showed a lot of spunk after falling behind 28-0 early in the second half.

Jefferson had only 32 players in uniform, including one who kept throwing up in practice all week and another who went to the hospital during the week with dehydration.

"I thought the score was no indication of how well we played," Webb said. "I was very proud of our effort. I think the lack of depth is what really got to us.

"At one point we ran out of running backs," he said. "We had to put a player in at running back (Drake Allen) who had never taken a snap."

Prairie scored on its third play from scrimmage on a 74-yard scamper by wide receiver Demetrius Harper on an end-around. Harper broke several tackles, made a nice cut and got a final block from Rhett Patzner to reach the end zone.

Hanna found Edmonds for a 23-yard strike down the middle of the field to make it 13-0, then Hanna hit Edmonds again for a 3-yard touchdown with just 17 seconds left in the first half as the Hawks grabbed a 21-0 cushion at intermission.

"The Combo" struck again for a 62-yard touchdown on the third play of the second half as the Hawks made it 28-0, but Prairie sputtered the rest of the game and the J-Hawks fought back.

"We kind of bogged down after we were up 28-to-nothing. We kind of laid back," said Hanna, who finished 9 of 20 for 192 yards. "We need to clean that up for the next game."

Jefferson scored on a 2-yard run by quarterback Layne Sullivan with 1:15 left in the third period and Reece Suckow kicked the PAT to make it 28-7.

The J-Hawks reached the Prairie 7-yard line in the fourth quarter in a bid to make it 28-14, but were turned away.

"I think we let our guard down a little bit in the second half," Prairie Coach Mike Morrissey remarked. "We started to beat ourselves with penalties."

The Hawks were penalized 11 times for 80 yards.

"It felt like 12 to 15 of them," Morrissey said. "No team in our conference is good enough to win games week-in and week-out when you're beating yourself with penalties."

This is Morrissey's second year as head coach and he had 50 players in uniform. That gave him 18 more bodies than the J-Hawks.

Prairie finished with 362 yards of total offense, compared to 157 for Jefferson, and most of Prairie's yardage came in big chunks. There was the 74-yard touchdown by Harper, the 62-yard touchdown pass to Edmonds and another 59-yard strike to Edmonds.

Those three plays accounted for 195 yards -- more than half of Prairie's total for the game.

"We relied almost too much on a big play tonight," Morrissey said. "We didn't have much of a sustained drive offensively.

"I thought they controlled the ball in the second half more than we could handle at times. That's a credit to their kids and their coaching staff. They were warriors tonight when they needed to be."

Jefferson has not won a football game since the seniors on this year's team were in the ninth grade in 2009, but these J-Hawks believe they are 0-and-1, not 0-and-23.

"It didn't turn out the way we wanted it to, but the effort was there," said Hunter Kloubec, a two-way performer who intercepted a pass at linebacker. "We had effort the whole game. We put in more effort than we probably have in the last three years that we've seen. Everybody was hustling.

"This gives us a lot of hope," Kloubec said. "I see a bright, bright future. This is just the beginning."

Jefferson hosts Xavier Thursday night at Kingston Stadium. Prairie faces Kennedy at Kingston Stadium on Friday night.

"We didn't have enough horses in the ring. But it will build," Webb remarked. "I'm looking long-term and trying to build this program the right way. I think the kids we have want to be here, they want to be successful."

Michael Moncivais, a tough cookie at 5-foot-5 and 146 pounds, was supposed to be Jefferson's starting tailback, but he got hurt in practice and did not play. Nick O'Connell and Creighton Robinson gave the J-Hawks a spark at times at tailback.

The J-Hawks hurt themselves with three lost fumbles.

PRAIRIE 28, JEFFERSON 7

CRJ       CRP

First Downs      12        12
Rushing          38-87     32-221
Passing          6-15-0    9-20-2
Passing Yards    70        192
Punts            4-41.8    3-26.3
Penalties        5-28      11-80
Fumbles/Lost     4/3       0/0

Jefferson    0   0   7   0 - 7
Prairie      7  14   7   0 - 28

CRP - Demetrius Harper 74 run (Sam Drysdale kick)
CRP - Jarred Edmonds 23 pass from Jace Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRP - Edmonds 3 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRP - Edmonds 62 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRJ - Layne Sullivan 2 run (Reece Suckow kick)

Individual Statistics

Rushing
Jefferson: O'Connell 10-38, Robinson 10-33, Kloubec 3-12, Larson 1-5, Sullivan 14-(minus 1).
Prairie: Harper 7-96, Hanna 6-54, Beyer 8-24, Simpson 2-18, Dellamuth 2-14, Northrup 5-10, Beckman 2-5.

Passing
Jefferson: Sullivan 6-15-0, 70 yards
Prairie: Hanna 9-20-2, 192 yards.

Receiving
Jefferson: Kloubec 2-17, Robinson 2-4, Bernauer 1-36, Watson 1-22.
Prairie: Edmonds 5-170, Harper 3-14, Dellamuth 1-8.

Sophomore Score: Jefferson 28, Prairie 0.