North Montgomery football got a dominant 20-7 win over Western Boone last week to open up sectional play. The 6-4 Chargers will now see another Sagamore Conference re-match in the Class 3A Sectional 29 semi-finals on Friday night when they welcome in the 9-1 SAC Champions and the No. 8 team in Class 3A in the Tri-West Bruins. Tri-West is coming off a dominating win of their own last week, as they defeated Hendricks County rival Danville 42-7.
The Bruins defense has been stout all season, including during the regular season matchup against the Chargers where Tri-West earned a 38-0 win. Tri-West has give up double digit points just three times this season as they’re holding their opponents to just 9.6 points per game which is 12th in the state.
As they did for the Stars a week ago, Charger coach Josh Thompson notes how his team is watching their regular season film and making adjustments from that game so his team is better suited on Friday night.
“Our kids are excited for the chance play Tri-West again and we’ve had a great week of practice. I feel good about where we’re at mentally heading into this game and now we have to translate that into the game when we kick it off. We know that we made some mistakes last time against them and it comes down to us learning from those and playing better fundamental football. We made some good plays in the first half to keep the score 10-0, then the game started to get away from us in the second half. We’re making some tweaks as we did last week. We want to control the football and finish our drives in the end-zone.”
What plagued the Chargers in that 38-0 loss was the fact that they turned the football over seven times and manged just 101 total yards on offense.
As they have been all season the Bruins are led out by junior QB Malachi Walden who has been near unstoppable this season. Through the air Walden is 101-175 (57.7%) for 1,254 yards and 14 TD’s and seven interceptions. On the ground is where the junior has shined even more with 169 rushes for 1,319 yards and 17 more TD’s. Noah Lien is the leading receiver for the Bruins with 33 catches for 420 yards.
In that 38-0 loss Walden had 20 carries for 182 yards and 3TD’s and was 11-23 for 140 more yards and two more scores.
“To stop a player like him you have to make sure you’re securing your tackles,” Thompson said of prepping for Walden. “You have to have guys pursuing to the football and finish the play. We can’t let him get away from us because those will lead to big plays which we can’t afford to give up. He’s a good athlete so we’re doing things this week to make sure our guys in the best spots possible to slow him down.”
The Chargers also have a do-it-all QB of their own in senior Ross Dyson. Dyson on the season has thrown for 1,428 yards and 13 TD’s on 104-187 (55.6%). Dyson has added 582 yards rushing on 127 attempts and eight more scores. Kelby Harwood is coming off his best receiving game of the season where the 6’3 junior hauled in six passes for 116 yards and a pair of TD’s. Jarrod Kirsch, Roman Utterback, Austin Sulc, and Noah Hopkins are also featured in the Charger offense that is extremely multi-dimensional.
The winner between the Bruins and Chargers will play the winner of Monrovia and Speedway next Friday night for the sectional title.
You can catch a live broadcast of the game beginning at 6:30 as Jared McMurry and Rob Hinckley will have the call from Charger Field.
