County Football

Mounties edge out Chargers in physical county rivalry

Hannum earns title of winningest coach in Southmont history

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NEW MARKET — Southmont vs North Montgomery lived up to the hype and a little more on Friday as the two county rivals squared off for the first time in two years at Mountie Stadium. The game was everything you’d expect in a county rivalry as both teams were took turns imposing their will on the other. The game came down to the final few minutes as the Mounties held a 14-6 advantage with 2:48 left in the game Gage Galloway scored from four yards out to make it a 14-12 game. A failed onside kick forced the Chargers to use all of their timeouts and by the time they got the ball back on offense they had time for a miracle heave. Southmont knocked the pass down and walked away with a thrilling 14-12 county and conference victory.

“It was just a gutty effort on our part,” Southmont coach Desson Hannum said. “It was a gritty, physical style of a football game and sure wasn’t a thing a beauty. North Montgomery made played well and made us do some things we really didn’t want to do. Our kids just stuck with it and honestly Trip’s (Ward) two extra points were the difference in the game.”

Both defenses shines as North Montgomery was able to out-gain Southmont in total yards 161-105. Wyatt Woodall tallied 86 of those 105 yards on the ground and scored the first touchdown of the game on the opening drive of the game for the Mounties.

The Chargers got the ball to begin the game and drove it down the field themselves and scored on a 22-yard pass from Ross Dyson to William Ramsey who maintained his balance before stumbling in for the score.

After those two scores both defenses would hold firm until the opening drive of the third quarter when Carson Chadd scored to make it 14-6.

Charger coach Josh Thompson noted how the mental mistakes cost his team in the loss.

“We simply can’t make that many mistakes and expect to win,” he said. “Too many times we shot ourselves in the foot. We missed assignments and too many stupid penalties. We had mistakes on both sides of the ball and those are things we just can’t have. We’re a better football team than what we showed tonight and we’ll get it fixed.”

In such a close game mistakes tend to be magnified. Southmont did end up committing 12 penalties for 89 yards and that’s something that Hannum knows will have to be cleaned up.
“That is just way too many,” Hannum said of the penalties against his team. “We have to be a lot more disciplined and we can’t have that many when you’re going to go up against the competition that we’re going to see later in the season.”

It was not only a special win for the Mounties who improve to 3-0 (1-0 SAC) on the season, but it was also a very special victory for Hannum who now stands as the all-time wins leader in Southmont football history passing legendary coach Ken Coudret with his 71st career win. Hannum took time to reflect on that historic accomplishment after the win.

“Probably the most important thing that means more than that to me is our guys coming up to me and telling me ‘coach I love ya’” he said. “To be able to have the respect of those kids and watch them come out and play hard and play physical. Mr. Coudret was one of the first people to welcome me when I got hired. He opened his house to our coaches and took really good care of us.”

The Chargers suffer their first loss of the season and fall to 2-1 (0-1 SAC). They’ll welcome Lebanon (0-3, 0-1) next week.

Southmont will make the trip to Frankfort (2-1, 0-1 SAC) next week for a matchup with Hot Dogs.


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