King’s Fork High School’s football team defeated Great Bridge High School 39-9 on Monday night in Chesapeake, and with the conclusion of the victory came a big sigh of relief from Bulldogs coach Joe Jones.

“Just glad to get it in and over and get the win,” he said, after inclement weather pushed the contest from Friday to Monday. “I told the guys before the game I was more nervous than any game this year just because of lack of practice. We haven’t practiced since Wednesday last week, and Wednesday’s practice was a light practice indoors because of the weather.”

But Jones got some reassurance from an important source on Monday — senior feature back Deshaun ‘Debo’ Wethington.

“He told me today in school, he said, ‘I’m ready,’ because he knew I was a little nervous,” Jones said.

Wethington demonstrated his readiness emphatically, carrying the ball 15 times for 289 yards and five touchdowns.

In the first half, “we just wanted to try to slug through it, get back into football gear,” Jones said. “Debo was the difference the first half in having the lead we did.”

King’s Fork tried some different things on offense, but little worked outside of Wethington running the ball. The Bulldogs took a 7-0 lead off a seven-yard touchdown run by Wethington with 8:59 remaining in the first quarter.

Great Bridge showed some fight offensively by responding with a 23-yard field goal about four and a half minutes later.

“They’ve had some struggles this year, kind of a bad situation with the coach having to resign, but those guys stepped up, and they get better each week,” Jones said of the Wildcats.

Wethington helped make it 14-3 about five minutes into the second quarter on a two-yard scoring run, which was set up nicely by two prior Wethington runs.

He also found the end zone from 52 yards out with 2:50 to go before halftime to make it 20-3.

Two minutes later, a blocked punt gave King’s Fork the ball on the Wildcats’ 28-yard line. The Bulldogs got up near the Great Bridge end zone but could not punch the ball in. Then, they came up empty when a short field goal attempt was blocked.

“We can’t do that against the rest of the teams we play,” Jones said. “We’ve got to score when we’re first and goal before halftime, but we came out the second half and made some things happen, so I felt much better.”

King’s Fork scored 19 points in the third quarter off a one-yard scoring run by sophomore feature back/slotback Darran Butts and touchdowns runs by Wethington of 18 and 15 yards.

Those three scores were set up, respectively, by a blocked punt and ensuing return by senior John Spearman to the Great Bridge one-yard line, an interception by sophomore defensive back Quincy Gregg and a recovered squib kick at the Wildcats’ 15.

King’s Fork (4-1) visits Lakeland High School (2-3) on Friday night.

“It’ll be nice to get three days of practice in now,” Jones said.