Parkersburg’s Chris Cox (65) tackles Huntington’s D’Edrick Graves during a high school football game Friday at Stadium Field. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Zah Jackson’s 85-yard punt return for a touchdown just before halftime put host Parkersburg in a 28-7 hole here Friday night at Stadium Field as defending Class AAA state champion Huntington left town with a 49-21 victory.

The top-rated Highlanders of head man Billy Seals, who improved to 7-0 and play host to Cabell Midland next Friday, held the three score advantage at intermission despite trailing the Big Reds in first downs (eight to three) and holding a mere 91 to 89 advantage in total yards.

Jackson opened the scoring at 5:46 of the first when he scored on fourth-and-goal from the 1. The Big Reds were unable to recover a D’Edrick Graves fumble on third down, which was recovered by lineman Wyatt Adkins.

PHS head coach Matt Kimes’ squad started drive three at the HHS 35, but turned the ball over on downs.

Three plays later, Avonte Crawford hit Mikey Johnson on a 46-yard scoring strike and it was 14-0 at 1:04 of the first when Jonny Aya-Ay made the second of his seven successful extra points.

Parkersburg’s Matthew Stalnaker wraps up Huntington’s Zah Jackson as teammate Casey Stanley comes in with an assist during Friday’s game. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

The No. 13 Big Reds, who slipped to 4-3 and welcome in Capital next Friday, answered right back with a 12-play, 72-yard scoring march capped by a David Parsons to Andrew Stalnaker 6-yard TD pass. Following Casey Stanley’s boot, the red and white only trailed by a score with 6:37 remaining in the half.

Although the PHS defense forced a three-and-out, Tayveon Wilson had a 52-yard punt as the Big Reds took over at their own 22. After an intentional grounding call and a false start, PHS faced a second-and-28 from its own 4. That’s when disaster struck as the handoff from Parsons to Jason Williams didn’t materialize. The ball bounced around in the end zone before Highlander Cam Veazey pounced on it for a touchdown to make it 21-7 at the 4:51 mark.

The Big Reds marched across midfield from their own 20, but a holding penalty helped to thwart the drive. Jackson then followed with the huge punt return to give HHS all the momentum.

“We’ve lost to three really good football teams and for 90% of those football games we’ve been competitive,” said coach Kimes, whose team held a 17-13 edge in first downs, rushed for more yards (34-123 to 19-83), but lost the total yards battle, 314-232, as both teams were assessed 100-plus stripes in penalties. “We’re right there with them. We can’t beat ourselves against really good football teams. We can’t give up the special teams points we gave up. We can’t fumble in our own end zone.

“With those things being said we still found a way to be competitive and do some really good things tonight at times. The challenge now for my guys is can we do a little reflection on maybe are we doing everything we can do possibly to get better, right, and maybe make some changes with our focus and our preparation, and making sure that we’re taking care of the details. If we do those things and play clean games we’re going to give ourselves opportunities to win.”

Crawford, who hit all eight of his passes after the break, finished 12 of 14 for 226 yards.

After amassing just the trio of first downs in the opening 24 minutes, Huntington had four first downs to open the second half. Crawford led the team on a five-play, 80-yard scoring drive that consumed just 86 seconds. Crawford hit Malik McNeeley, who finished with game-highs of seven catches for 93 yards, for gains of 17 and 20 yards. Jackson, who rushed eight times for 53 yards, went for 12 stripes and another first down. Crawford then connected with Tayveon Wilson for a gain of 30 as the signal-caller finished it off with a 1-yard TD run for a 35-7 lead.

Parsons’ 5-yard completion to Matthew Stalnaker got the Big Reds across midfield. Following a Highlander penalty, Andrew Stalnaker caught his second touchdown pass, this one a 40-yarder, at 8:45 of the third.

Huntington answered right back as Jamari Tubbs had a 45-yard reception and McNeeley capped the drive with a 10-yard touchdown catch.

Veazey recovered his second fumble on the next PHS drive, which eventually led to a 49-14 deficit with 9.5 ticks left in the third after Crawford hooked up with Tubbs on a 2-yard TD toss.

Max Bohren’s sack ended the Big Reds’ next drive, but the hosts got the final six-pointer with 22.1 seconds left on a Williams 2-yard run. Williams had 12 carries for 39 yards, while Jakel Shelton carried 13 times for a game-high 54 yards.

“We did not play good football tonight to be honest with you,” admitted coach Seals, who is hoping to have standout Duane Harris back next week. “I thought defensively we were atrocious, but give Parkersburg some credit. They did some nice things and they got a good football team. We told our team all week long up to this point we felt like this was the best team we had played up to this point.

“It’s no disrespect to the teams that we played previously. We felt offensively they were complex, a lot of motions. I thought Matt Canada was calling the offense over there when he was at LSU. They did a great job on offense tonight and kind of slowed us down on our aggressiveness on defense. We did not play our brand of ball.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com