NEW MARKET — Southmont used a hounding defense and a punishing ground game to hand county rival North Montgomery a lopsided loss for the second year in a row with a 41-14 win Friday night in a game delayed by 90 minutes due to the heat.
Southmont used a swarming and hard-hitting defense to force seven North Montgomery turnovers (five fumbles and two interceptions) which led to three of the six Mountie touchdowns. Those turnovers were something North Montgomery head coach Josh Thompson was not happy with.
“I told them (the team) that you can’t expect to win any game when you turn the ball over seven or eight times,” he said. “There is just no excuse for that. We started out great and had a lot of energy and then we started turning the ball over and by the middle of the second quarter we quit playing with any energy. That is not acceptable.”
North Montgomery came out and got on the board first when Lincoln Heide led the Charger offense on an 11-play, 71 yard scoring drive which was capped off with a 3-yard run by the quarterback. That came with 2:11 in the first quarter.
The Mounties responded with a one-play 60-yard run by sophomore running back Neyo Holmes. That came one play after it appeared Southmont quarterback Eli Hannum had faked out the entire Chargers defense and waltzed into the end zone. However, the play also faked out the official who blew the whistle unaware that Hannum had the ball. The play was called an “inadvertent whistle” and declared a no play. The next play, Holmes raced down the other sideline for the score. The extra point gave the Mounties the 7-6 lead and it was all Mounties after that.
The two teams battled back and forth for the rest of the first half and then after a missed field goal attempt, the Chargers took over on their own 11. The first play was picked off and returned to the Chargers’ 1 where Kasen Bushong bulled in two plays later, giving the Mounties a 14-6 lead at the break.
The second half belonged all to the Mounties.
In the second half the Mounties rushed for 230 yards and four touchdowns - two each by Bushong and sophomore running back Clay Sering.
“We challenged our line this week after last week’s game,” said Southmont coach Desson Hannum, who won his 99th game at Southmont with this win. “We hadn’t been happy with their physicality in the first two weeks and wanted them to step it up. We told them we wanted to run straight ahead and it was up to them. They really responded. In any North vs South game the team that wins the physical battle usually wins the game and I think that showed tonight.”
The Mounties got excellent production from a slew of running backs. Late in the game, several of the starters were hampered with cramps and other issues. A total of seven players carried the ball as the Mounties rushed for 364 yards on 49 carries. In the second half Southmont rushed 25 times for 229 yards.
Bushong led the Mounties’ offense with 141 yards on 22 carries and three scores. Holmes had his first 100-yard game with 111 yards on just seven carries. Kooper Charles added 44 yards on five carries.
North Montgomery had 265 yards of offense, led by 158 yards through the air from Heide. Eighty of those yards came on a pass to Kayden Cohee for the lone Charger second-half score. Heide also added 49 yards on the ground and Dakota Glasson led the team in rushing with 60 yards.
Southmont (2-1, 1-0 in MAC play) will travel to Frankfort next while North Montgomery (1-2, 0-1) will play defending MAC champion Cascade on Friday.
