North Montgomery QB tossed four touchdowns and 351 yards.
North Montgomery's Kade Kobel caught nine passes for 77 yards in the Charger's 39-36 loss to Tri-West.
North Montgomery's Kai Warren and Drew Webster topple a Tri-West ball carrier.
LINDEN — Tri-West held off a furious comeback by the North Montgomery Chargers to escape with a 39-36 Sagamore Conference victory Friday night. The Chargers won nearly every offensive and defensive category, recovered three consecutive on-side kicks in the fourth quarter, but their effort fell short on their Homecoming night.
The Chargers (3-4, 2-3) out-gained the Bruins 478-214, and had 27 first downs compared to just 14 for Tri-West, but in the end, first quarter woes doomed the Chargers.
Tri-West (5-2, 4-1) jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead with just under seven minutes into the game as the Chargers gave up two scores in four plays. On the second play of the game Bruin’s quarterback Luke Robertson found Bryce Hendershot for a 55—yard pass scoring strike. After a quick three-and-out by North and a short punt, Bruin Garrett Cora found pay dirt from 36 yards out to put the Chargers in a hole they never were able to recover from.
North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson expressed disappointment in the way his team started the game.
“There are some things we have to fix,” Thompson said. “We talked to kids all the time the most important thing is their response when things go wrong and Tri-West came out ready to play and took advantage of a short field.”
North Montgomery did not panic and were able to put together a scoring drive capped off by quarterback Jaron Bradford finding Kolton Scrimager for the first of his two touchdown receptions from nine yards out. North Montgomery failed on a two-point conversion which was a sign of things to come the rest of the game.
North Montgomery contained the Bruin’s offense for most of the first half. In fact, four consecutive three-and-out possessions by Tri-West, gave North some momentum capped by a Bradford to Zak Searle scoring strike to pull the Chargers within two points at 14-12 after missing another two-point conversion.
The Chargers were marching again toward a score but a 10-play drive stalled on the Bruin 28. The stop seemed to help the Bruins as they went 71-yards on 8 plays in 2:22. A 9-yard scoring pass from Robertson to Dominic Pugliese made the score 21-12 at halftime.
The third quarter belonged to the Bruins as they were able to put up two scores and take a 33-12 lead after three quarters.. The first was a Cora 7-yard run. The second touchdown came when Robertson, with Chargers draped all over him, found Cora for an unlikely 14-yard pass on fourth down.
Next, the fourth quarter happened.
Charger Zach Waldon helped his team climb back into the game with consecutive touchdown runs of six and two yards respectively. The second touchdown made the score 33-24 with 5:55 to play.
Freshman kicker Thomas Laffoon executed a perfect onside kick which his teammates recovered. However, Bradford was stripped of the ball and Hendershot picked up the loose football and ran 48 yards for a touchdown to make the score 39-24.
The never-say-die Chargers immediately came back and scored when Bradford found a streaking Scrimmager down the left sideline who scored from 44 yards out to make the score 39-30.
Another perfectly executed onside kick allowed the Chargers to once again gain possession of the ball. This time North went 47 yards in just under two minutes to pull within three points, 39-36, when Kai Warren hauled in a scoring strike from Bradford with :59 left on the clock.
Again, Laffoon was able to place the kickoff in a position that allowed his team to recover a third consecutive onside kick.
The Chargers started marching again for the go-ahead score. In fact, a long throw to Warren just barely fell incomplete with the receiver falling into the end-zone. The Charger comeback failed when they were forced to give up the ball on downs from the 24-yard line with :25.1 left in the game.
“Obviously we played our tails off to give us a shot in the fourth quarter”, Thompson said. “We just ran out of time unfortunately.”
Bradford led the Charger offense with 351 passing yards on 33 completions out of a whopping 55 pass attempts. He threw four scoring strikes.
Another problem was the fact the Chargers did not convert one two-point conversion in the game.
Tri-West 14 7 12 6 – 39
North Montgomery 6 6 0 24 – 36
Scoring
First quarter
TW Hendershot 55-yard pass from Robertson, Stucker kick, 11:01
TW Cora 36-yard run, Stucker kick, 8:55
NM Scrimager 9-yard pass from Bradford, 2-point conversion failed, 3:72
Second quarter
NM Searle 18-yard pass from Bradford, 2-point conversion failed, 9:55
TW Pugliese 9-yard pass from Robertson, Stucker kick, :38
Third Quarter
TW Cora 7-yard run, kick failed
TW Cora 14-yard pass from Robertson, kick failed
Fourth Quarter
NM Waldon 6-yard run, 2-point conversion failed, 10:26
NM Waldon 2-yard run, 2-point conversion failed, 5:55
TW Hendershot 44-yard fumble return, kick failed 5:26
NM Colton Scrimager 44-yard pass from Bradford, 2-point conversion failed, 2:52
NM Warren 9-yard pass from Bradford, 2-point conversion failed, :59
Game Stats
NM TW
Rushing 38–127 21–28
Passing 33–55-35 15–22–186
Total yards 478 214
First Downs 27 14
Fumbles/lost 3/3 1/0
Penalties 4–30 8–85
Individual Stats
Rushing NM Waldon 7–33, Bradford 14–(-1), Kobel 4–16, Braun 2–11, Searle 11–68) TW (Cora 13-78, Hendershot 2–(-8), Robertson 6–(-42)
Passing NM Bradford 33-55-351-4TDs, TW Robertson 15-22-196 3TDs
Receiving NM (Kobel 9–77, Carmean 8–65, Scrimager 7–90, Searle–58, Warren 3–32, Waldon 4–29) TW (Hendershot 6–141, Marlowe 4–30, Depinet 1–6, Pugliese 1–9)
