LINDEN — There’s one word or phrase that allows gets brought up with fans, coaches, and players the week of the North Montgomery vs Southmont game. That word is physical. Who can be more physical between the Mounties and Chargers? That usually decides the game and Friday night was no exception. The night belonged to the Charger offensive and defensive lines who created big running lanes on offense while bottling up the always potent Mountie ground game. The final from Charger field read 28-14 in favor of the home Chargers as it was a happy night for all Charger fans, players and students.
North Montgomery (2-1, 1-0 SAC) ran for 208 yards on the ground and threw for 142 and down the stretch when they needed it most, their defense held strong to preserve the county win.
“It feels amazing to always be the one to come out on top of this one,” Charger coach Josh Thompson said. “Our kids played amazing tonight and they deserve this. This game came down which team was going to hold out the best because we both have a ton of guys playing two ways. Our kids did what we asked of them and the focus all week in practice was on us.”
The Chargers made a slight change up front this week as senior Corbin Meadows volunteered to move down from his normal tight end spot to tackle. Thompson who usually keeps everything team oriented, made sure to give credit to Meadows for being the who suggested the change.
“That was very selfless act on his part,” Thompson noted. “He was the one to come to us so we ran with it this week. He and the rest of our o-line played great and I just overall couldn’t be more proud of our kids right now.”
North Montgomery got the scoring going on their first drive with a 32 yard touchdown pass to Roman Utterback. Early second quarter a big 23 yard run from Cale Chadd set up a three yard score from Wyatt Woodall to make the score 8-7 Chargers. The Chargers answered right back almost four minutes later thanks a 25 yard touchdown reception from Kelby Harwood who originally tipped the ball up the air but corralled it back in for the score. North made it 22-7 as Utterback scored his second touchdown of the game on a 22 yard run. After the Chargers turned it over on downs Nolan Boyer got the Mounties back in the ball game with a 22 yard run of his own to make it 22-14.
Then one of the biggest plays of the game occurred. South was set to receive the ball after their defense forced a punt. Kyler McCandless ended up muffing the ball and the Chargers fell on it to take over deep in Mountie territory but once again the Mountie defense held serve and force a Charger turnover on downs. With the ball at their own 11 yard line Boyer dropped back to pass and it was picked off by Dyson which allowed the Chargers to score on a three yard run by Austin Sulc to seal the game.
“This game is hard fought and it all comes down who can give and sustain the longest,” Mountie coach Desson Hannum said. “You find out a lot about your team in this game. Something we found out even though we lost was that our kids aren’t going to ever quit. We just have to cut down on our mistakes and especially the penalties to give our selves chances to win. You have to give kudos to North for how well they ran the football. We still found ourselves in a spot in the fourth quarter with a chance to go down and tie the game but things just didn’t break our way.”
The Mounties fall to 2-1 (0-1 SAC) on the year and will get ready to go back home next week when they host Frankfort (1-2, 0-1 SAC). North Montgomery will hit the road for a test with Lebanon (0-3 0-1 SAC).
Another special thing worth noting about this game is that is was the first time that either senior class for the Chargers or Mounties played this game at North Montgomery. Thompson ended by saying how it meant just a little more that this group of seniors was able to win this game on the home turf.
“It was great for these kids to get to play this game here and more importantly win this game on their home field,” he said. “They’re a close group of kids and it’s really starting to trickle down into our younger guys and that’s exactly what we need from those guys to keep building this team.”
*Editors Note*
This story will be updated with pictures at a later time
