O-R Athlete of the Week: Jonah Williamson, Trinity
Name: Jonah Williamson
Grade: Senior
School: Trinity
Sport: Football
Williamson’s week: In Trinity’s Class 4A Big Six Conference opener Friday, Williamson beat Ringgold with his arm and his legs. He threw for 227 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for 164 yards and two more scores. He had nearly 400 yards of offense on his stat line and six touchdowns in a 48-14 win at Joe Montana Stadium.
Like a good leader, Williamson deferred his successes to his teammates.
“It all starts up front with the line,” Williamson said. “They did a good job blocking the run and protecting me when I was passing. My wide receivers did a good job working open and working in space. That allowed me to hit them and they made plays for me. Our running back, Owen Gardiner, had a good game too, which helps open up the running game for me as well. All of that combined helped me have a good game.”
For the season, Williamson, a Harvard commit, is 58 of 91 passing for 879 yards, 13 touchdowns and six interceptions. He has 534 yards rushing and nine touchdowns.
Same page: Three of Williamson’s touchdown passes Friday were to Braden Berdar. He also threw one to Javis Pugh. Bedar, a junior wide receiver, scored on catches of 29, 30 and 65 yards. He has been one of Williamson’s top targets with 13 receptions for 241 yards and four touchdowns.
“Last year in the offseason and into this year he’s been working a lot with me,” Williamson said. “That is just hard work paying off for him and shows how much our timing has improved.”
Big test: Trinity’s football season has followed a similar pattern to last year up to this point. A brutal nonconference schedule left the Hillers with one win in the first five weeks, but they rebounded well in Big Six Conference play, going 4-1 and making the playoffs. The lone loss came to Thomas Jefferson, who The Hillers host on Friday. The Jaguars are the defending WPIAL Class 4A champs.
“I’m super excited for it,” Williamson said. “It’s a big conference game for us at home and it’s our homecoming game. I’m looking forward to the challenge that this week brings and how we can show that our ‘Make today count’ mindset is paying off.”
All-around athlete: Williamson not only plays quarterback for the Hillers, but he’s the point guard on the basketball team and he’s on the baseball team. It’s all sports all the time and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“It keeps me active,” Williamson said. “Each sport is fun in its own right and being able to compete is something that I love. The first sport I played was baseball and that was my favorite sport for a long time until I started playing high school football. I started playing football in the fourth grade. I’ve always played basketball too. Both of my parents were basketball players, so that kind of happened naturally.”
When he isn’t playing sports competitively, Williamson enjoys fishing and golfing.
Compiled by Jerin Steele