SUNBRIGHT – After a series of frustrating weeks the North Greene football team got to experience the thrill of victory once again on Friday night as it went to Sunbright and came back with a 58-20 win.
“It’s good to get back in the win column. It feels good to come out here and execute well. We still had to overcome some adversity, but we hammered down and tackled well. Then when you create turnovers on defense good things tend to happen.”
The 58 points is a new program record for the Huskies, passing the previous high mark of 57 points scored against Cosby in 2002.
That scoring effort was the result of a big offensive night that saw the Huskies produce 402 yards of offense, including 265 yards through the air.
Quarterback Jared Swatzell threw for 234 yards and three touchdowns. Matt Boyds had three catches for 105 yards with a touchdown and Kelson Eastep had four catches for 92 yards with two touchdowns.
“The offense methodically did what we needed to do with Jared distributing the ball and making the right reads,” Tilson said. “We’ve been working on that for a while, and when things get protected it can look pretty good. We established some things in the run game early and that opened things up in the pass game.”
The Huskies wasted little time reaching into their bag of tricks and picking up big yards on their first pass play of the night. Tilson drew up a reverse, double pass where running back Leon Johnson took a handoff to start. He handed to receiver Matt Boyd on a reverse. Boyd threw across the field to Swatzell and Swatzell threw down field to Eastep for a 31-yard gain.
A 22-yard reception by Charles Price put the ball at the three-yard line and from there Leon Johnson powered across the goal line for his first of two touchdowns.
Johnson finished Friday with 87 rushing yards in 11 carries with two scores.
The Huskies defense then got involved in the game quickly. On the Tigers’ first snap they knocked the ball loose from Tyler Jackson and Levi Gray quickly jumped on it.
The fumble recovery was the first of three turnovers North Greene forced on Friday. In the second half they added interceptions from Eastep and Boyd that were returned for touchdowns.
“We’ve been looking to make turnovers all year, and it was good to see it finally happen,” Tilson said. “Our secondary guys did a great job of cutting off routes. Then not only did they get the pick, they finished it, and we had guys out in front of them blocking, which was great to see.”
North Greene’s offense wasted little time stretching the lead to 14-0 when Johnson went 20-yards off tackle and into the endzone. Price then ran in the two-point try with 8:47 left in the first quarter.
Sunbright was able to get going with an 11-play, 76-yard drive for its first points of the night. Kenny Jones plunged across the goal line from two-yards away.
After North Greene fumbled Sunbright closed the gap to 14-12 with 2:55 left in the first half. Jackson finished off the drive with a 22-yard touchdown run.
North Greene then closed the first half with some fireworks that flipped the momentum. That started with Swatzell hitting Boyd going up the seam. The senior speedster out ran everyone for an 85-yard touchdown.
The drive lasted just 21 seconds, and then North Greene’s defense needed only 1:26 to force a punt.
With one minute on the clock North Greene moved 66 yards and took a 30-12 lead before halftime. Swatzell started things with an 11-yard scramble and Johnson followed with a 14-yard burst off the right side. After a pass interference call put North Greene on the 30-yard line Swatzell threw up a jump ball and Eastep elevated to grab it in the endzone with 18 seconds left.
Tilson said, “The game got tight and we had to do something to curb the momentum. They almost tied it up and then we got that quick score. Then to score on top of that was really huge. We needed that cushion to be able to play free in the second half.”
On North Greene’s first drive of the third quarter Swatzell hit Levi Gray going down the middle of the field and the tight end refused to be tackled, running over a series of Tigers before earning a 43-yard touchdown that made it 38-12.
Two snaps later Eastep picked off Tiger quarterback Mason Robbins and returned it 40-yards for a touchdown.
Sunbright’s next drive moved a little further, but ended the same way. This time Boyd grabbed Robbins’ attempt and returned it 76 yards for a North Greene touchdown that pushed the advantage to 52-12.
An accidentally squibbed kickoff was recovered by Boyd to give North Greene’s offense a short field. The drive culminated in Tanner Collins throwing a 31-yard touchdown pass to Eastep for a 58-12 lead.
It was Collins’ first career touchdown.
Sunbright found one more score with 45 seconds left.
Next up for North Greene will be a trip to Unaka on Thursday, October 29 for the season finale.
