Charger mistakes mount in blowout loss
Jared McMurry
Journal Review
LIZTON – First half mistakes for North Montgomery proved to be costly for the Chargers in a 40-8 loss at Tri-West on Friday night.
After Ty Owens found Jeff Marsh with a 31-yard touchdown strike on the games’ first possession to give the Bruins (5-2, 4-1 SAC) and early lead — aided by a roughing the punter call — North Montgomery drove right into the red zone on its first drive.
The drive, though, was stopped right in its tracks. A fumble in the Charger backfield was scooped up by Brady Hamstra and returned 88 yards for a score.
The Bruins led 14-0 after a quarter and never looked back.
“What I told the kids at halftime was ‘I felt good when we started the game tonight.’ I have all the faith in the world in our guys,” North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson said. “We were down 14-0 with that scoop and score they got, and honestly I wasn’t even panicked then.”
But the margin for error got even slimmer, and unfortunately the Charger mistakes started to snowball.
Another promising North Montgomery drive stalled out in Bruin territory and Owens turned the turnover on downs into a 66-yard bomb to Marsh. The senior duo hooked up three times for 109 yards and two scores.
“We are not quite to a point yet where we can overcome our own mistakes sometimes,” Thompson said.
The Chargers lost two fumbles and threw in an interception in the first half, while Tri-West did not commit a turnover.
North Montgomery (3-4, 1-4) ran the ball downhill the entire night – totaling 151 rushing yards on 45 carries, including 105 from Austin Sulc – but the Bruins’ pass rush sacked Charger quarterback Ross Dyson four times for a loss of 22 yards in the first half.
“I thought we blocked hard, but didn’t sustain very well. No. 99 (Elzey) is a good player for them,” Thompson added. “We didn’t do a good enough job sustaining on him, and he caused a lot of problems in our backfield.”
North Montgomery totaled 101 yards of offense and eight first downs in the first half, but had no points to show for it, facing a 40-0 deficit.
“I’m not sure that (halftime score) was the whole story,” Thompson said. “We let things get away from us, but unfortunately in some aspects we are judged by the outcome of the came. These are all correctable errors and things we can work on in practice, and can put effort forth to improve on.”
Sulc accounted for 105 of the Chargers’ 208 yard total and scored their lone touchdown from three yards out in the fourth quarter. Tri-West put up 274 yards in the win, including 181 on 8-of-15 passing and four scores from Owens. Davon Brown was the leading rusher for the Bruins with 45 yards on seven carries.
North Montgomery will entertain Frankfort next Friday, while Tri-West visits Crawfordsville.
