North Montgomery vs Southmont. A matchup that is always wildly entertaining and usually has a lot at stake early in the season. The Mounties and Chargers will re-new their county rivalry when both teams hit the gridiron on Friday night at North Montgomery. Fun fact about this game is that this will be the first game between the county rivals played at North Montgomery since 2019. 2020 and 2022 were played at Southmont and the game was not played in 2021 due to COVID-19.
Southmont comes in with a record of 2-0 on the season after wins over Fountain Central and North Putnam. The Chargers come in at 1-1 on the year with a week one win over North Putnam and a week two loss against a talented Hamilton Heights team.
With a game of this magnitude both Southmont coach Desson Hannum and North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson have ramped up the intensity in practice this week.
“It’s been very competitive week of practice,” Hannum said of his teams preparation. “This game means a lot to both teams and we’ve used this to really fine tune and fix some things that we need to work on. This is a game that which ever team wins can propel their season as we each get further into conference play.”
For the Chargers, coach Thompson is making sure that his team stays focused on the task at hand.
“This game really begins the big goals that we have for this team,” Thompson said. “Every season we want to do well in county and in the conference, but right now we’re focused on us and self-improvement to make sure we’re at our best on Friday night. We have to be able to learn from our mistakes that cost us last Friday.”
The Mounties ground heavy run attack has already rushed for 707 yards this season. Senior fullback Wyatt Woodall currently sits tied for third in the state in rushing yards with 408 on the season through two games. Woodall has added seven touchdowns along with 16 tackles on defense. Senior QB Nolan Boyer has thrown for 278 yards and four touchdown through the first two weeks as the Mountie offense has put up 49 and 56 points in their first two games.
The Chargers are a very balanced offense early in the season as senior QB Ross Dyson has thrown for 348 yards and six TD’s through the first two weeks. Dyson already also has 29 carries for 174 yards as he’s the Chargers leading rusher. Both Roman Utterback and Kelby Harwood have each caught five passes with Jarrod Kirsch catching three. Kirsch and Utterback are both over 100 yards receiving.
“North Montgomery’s offense is much improved from the last few years,” Hannum said. “Their skill guys are very senior led and they’re playing how you’d expect seniors to play. Defensively you know it’s going to be a physical game when you play them. We have to be ready to get off to a better start than we did against North Putnam a week ago.”
The two county rivals both have high goals and high expectations for this season. One will see a slight set-back in those goals on Friday while the other marches on deeper into conference play. It’s a good old fashioned civil war at North Montgomery on Friday as the Chargers and Mounties kick things off at 7 p.m. You can catch a live broadcast of the game on WCDQ 106.3 beginning at 6:30 as Riley Woodall, Kevin Kirsch, and Codey Emerson will have the call.
