STONEY CREEK – The North Greene football team travelled to Unaka and took care of business on Friday night with a 44-6 win, and it put itself in position to do some things never done in Huskies’ history.
North Greene improves to 5-2, 3-0 and over the last two weeks of the regular season it has the opportunity to break the program record for wins in season (6), earn a home playoff game for the first time since 2011, and win its first ever region championship.
But they have to get through two tough games with Cloudland (3-3, 2-1) and Cosby (7-1, 4-0) to reach those goals.
“Our goals that we have been working toward are right in front of us,” North Greene coach Eric Tilson said. “We’re at that point where it is time to go take care of business. These guys are going to remember these two weeks for the rest of their lives. These moment are why you play football. We haven’t had these opportunities at North Greene in a long time, and it’s exciting.”
North Greene’s defense played tough all night, and a big punt block by Brnadon Weems set up the first score of the night. The Huskies defense made 10 stops behind the line of scrimmage on Friday and forced three turnovers.
Once the offense got the ball back North Greene needed just one play to take the lead. Quarterback Thomas Darnell went off tackle to the right and scrambled 13 yards for the score. Juan Soto made the extra point and with 7:31 left in the first quarter North Greene led 7-0.
The score held to the close of the quarter but the Huskies managed to score 34 points in the second period.
Unaka put together an 11-play drive that was helped by an interception by Jake Duffy being nullified because of penalty. The Rangers did give the ball away when quarterback Connor McKinney pitched the ball to no one behind the line of scrimmage and Leon Johnson jumped on it.
The Huskies offense marched 55 yards and Yeshua Vaught finished the drive with a three-yard touchdown run for a 13-0 lead with 10:32 left in the first half.
With 7:56 left in the second quarter Darnell found the endzone a second time. The Huskies spread the field and put four receivers to the right side. That left a lot of open space on the left side and Darnell raced 64 yards up the sideline for a 20-0 lead.
Darnell finished the night with five rushes for 103 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw for 63 yards and another score. All of that production came in the first half.
“I was really pleased with quarterback play tonight. He took what they gave him,” Tilson said. “A lot of that was preparation. He’s focused in practice and is doing a lot of film work. He knows what to look for and when they started running man across the board he knew what to do with it.”
On the first play of the Rangers’ ensuing possession Brayden Weems got in the backfield quickly and hit McKinney as he was throwing. The ball wobbled in the air and Vaught picked it off before returning it 30 yards to push the lead to 27-0.
Another short lived Unaka drive allowed North Greene to score with 5:19 still remaining in the first half. Darnell first hit Matthew Boyd for a 24-yard pickup and then the quarterback ran the ball in himself from nine yards away.
McKinney scored on a one-yard touchdown run with 1:32 left in the half for the Rangers’ only points of the night.
After a 30-yard kickoff return by Brayden Weems the Huskies moved 45 yards in 57 seconds to score one more time before halftime. Darnell finished the drive by booting to the right and finding Boyd in the back of the endzone for a 41-6 lead. It was Boyd’s first career touchdown.
“Forty points in a half is nothing to sneeze at. I was really pleased with execution tonight. We stalled on the first drive, after that we were rolling. We just have to keep that up next week,” Tilson said.
With the clock running in the second half a 21-yard field goal by Soto was the only score. It pushed North Greene’s lead to 44-6.
On the night North Greene gained 232 yards of offense and held Unaka to 117 yards.
Next up for North Greene is a trip to Cloudland. Before the regular season ends with a home game against Cosby.
