LIZTON — After Friday night’s 35-6 Sagamore Conference loss to Tri-West (4-2, 3-1), North Montgomery (5-2, 2-2) continues to search for a victory over a top-tier opponent. However, for Charger coach Josh Thompson it comes down to finding a way to get his team off to a good start at the beginning of a game.
The Bruins dominated the first half, which left Thompson scratching his head after his team trailed 21-6 at intermission.
“We got off to a really slow start and we couldn’t overcome it tonight,” Thompson said. “This week we just didn’t do it.”
The Bruins piled up 259 yards in the first two quarters while the Chargers were held to a mere 82 yards and only five first downs. Tri-West running back Garrett Cora racked up 115 yards rushing and quarterback Kai Ross threw for 123 yards in the first half.
Thompson said his team’s poor execution was the main culprit which prevented his team from defeating Tri-West for the first time since 2011.
“Defensively we were there but missed too many tackles,” Thompson said. “Offensively we could not put any drives together.”
The second half started a little better for the Chargers. North Montgomery forced the only three-and-out the Bruins had all game. However, the Chargers had to punt after not gaining a first down. The punt went out of bounds and gave the Bruins the ball on the Charger 30-yard line. It took Tri-West only six plays to score and go up 26-6.
Following the Tri-West score, North Montgomery mixed things up. The Charger offense came out and ran the wildcat offense with direct snaps going to Zak Searle. The visitors started on their five-yard line and proceeded to march down the field to the 12-yard line while running 14 plays. However, a key holding call forced the Chargers back to a second down on the 18-yard line which led to the Bruins taking the ball back on downs. North Montgomery did not come close to scoring the rest of the game.
Tri-West was able to score twice in the fourth quarter to keep North Montgomery from mounting any kind of a comeback.
The Bruins finished the game with 479 yard with 294 coming on the ground. Cora finished with 136 yards. Ross completed 16 of 23 passes for 185 yards and three for three touchdowns.
Searle led North Montgomery with 82 yards on 19 rushes.
The Chargers will try to get back on the winning track Friday when they play Frankfort in North Montgomery’s annual Homecoming game. Tri-West travels to Crawfordsville on Friday.
Tri-West 35, North Montgomery 6
North Montgomery 0 6 0 0 – 6
Tri-West 7 14 6 8 – 35
Scoring:
1st quarter
TW Garret Cora 15-yd run, Cortland Williams kick, 7:43
2nd quarter
TW Jacen Mohr 36-yd. pass from Kai Ross, Williams kick 11:12
NM Kolton Scrimmager 26-yd. pass from Donavan Haworth, run failed, 5:13
TW Cora 15-yd run, Williams kick, :46
3rd quarter
TW Kyler Marlowe 5-yd pass from Ross, kick failed, 7:00
4th quarter
TW Nikolas Joiner, 25-yd. interception return, Dipinet 2-pt. conversion, 6:07
Team Statistics NM TW
Rushing 120 194
Passing 64 185
Total yards 184 379
Fumbles/lost 1/1 0/0
Penalties 5-30 9-82
Individual Statistics
Rushing:
NM: Searle 19-82, Jacob Braun 9-26, Haworth 3-12
Passing:
NM: Donavan 2-12 34, Searle 2-2 30
Receiving:
NM: Logan Kelly 2-39, Scrimmager 1-24, Gabe Laws 1-1
