Northside rushes past Pulaski County in Cougars’ opener, 49-20
By TROY SARVER
Patriot Publishing
ROANOKE – Northside quarterback Casey Hall ran for 298 yards and two touchdowns as the Vikings ruined Pulaski County’s season opener topping the Cougars, 49-20 Friday night at Northside High School.
Hall, who had five runs of over 34 yards, led a Northside attack that saw the Vikings accumulate 548 yards on offense and score seven touchdowns. All but three of those yards came on the ground for Northside.
Coming into the contest Pulaski County head coach Cam Akers had concerns about the Vikings’ overall team speed, but after the game he didn’t believe that was the main reason Northside had success on his defense.
“We just didn’t tackle well on defense, and we weren’t able to get things going on offense,” Akers said.
Pulaski County did get off to a good start moving down the field on their opening possession of the game.
The Cougars drove 54 yards in 13 plays to the Northside 5-yard line, taking just over half the time on the first quarter clock. The drive was halted, though, when running back Maddox Thompson was stopped for no gain on a 4th-and-1 from the 5.
Northside would open the scoring later in the first when Hall busted loose on a 73-yard touchdown run to make it 7-0 with 48 seconds left in the opening quarter.
The Vikings’ Dayshon King then picked off a Bryant Nottingham pass on the Cougars’ next drive setting up Northside at the PC 41. Four plays later running back King Daniels scored on a 1-yard TD run to make it 14-0. The touchdown was set up by a 39-yard run by Hall down to the PC 1-yard line.
Pulaski County did get on the scoreboard on their next drive as the Cougars put together a 14-play, 78-yard drive that took six and half minutes off of the clock. Sammy Carrasco capped off the drive with an 11-yard TD run to make it 14-7 with 2:35 left in the second quarter.
The Cougars, however, left too much time on the clock as Northside answered moving 80 yards in just six plays. Hall eventually scored his second touchdown of the game with 28 seconds left on a three-yard touchdown run to make it 21-7 going into halftime.
Northside carried the momentum into the second half, scoring touchdowns on their first two drives of the third quarter to extend their advantage to 35-7.
The Cougars scored just before the end of the quarter when Nottingham ran into the endzone from eight yards out to cut the deficit to 35-14 with 26 seconds left in the period.
The Vikings put the game away with two more touchdowns in the fourth, but Pulaski County ended the game on a positive note as Thompson scored on a 19-yard TD run on the game’s final play.
The Cougars have seven days to lick their wounds and try to improve as they are scheduled to travel to Tazewell to take on the Bulldogs on Friday night.
“When things go wrong, we just got to stop the chaos,” Akers said. “We got to get back to work.”
Game time on Friday night will be 7 p.m.
Pulaski County 0 7 7 6 20
Northside 7 14 14 14 49
N – Hall 73 run (Lainez kick)
N – Daniels 1 run (Lainez kick)
PC – Carrasco 11 run (Nottingham kick)
N – Hall 3 run (Lainez kick)
N – D. King 12 run (Lainez kick)
N – Logan 23 run (Lainez kick)
PC – Nottingham 8 run (Nottingham kick)
N – Tucker 23 run (Lainez kick)
N – Berard 19 run (Lainez kick)
PC – Thompson 24 run (no kick)
Pulaski County Northside
First Downs 14 17
Yards Rushing 205 545
Passes C-A-I 4-10-1 1-1-0
Yards Passing 64 3
Penalties – Yards 4-45 9-96
Fumbles – lost 3-0 2-1
Punts – average 3-40 0-0
RUSHING – Pulaski County, Thompson 19-71, Carrasco 12-61, Nottingham 8-55, Wilson 6-18; Northside, Hall 14-298, Logan 7-88, Daniels 6-18, D. King 5-47, C. King 2-25, Tucker 1-23, Jackson 3-11, Ratcliffe 2-3, Berard 4-42, Day. King 1-0.
PASSING – Pulaski County, Nottingham 4-10-1-64; Northside 1-1-0-3
RECEIVING – Pulaski County, White 1-21, Wilson 2-26, Squires 1-17; Northside, C. King 1-3.