Don’t blame Newton County Academy Rob Roberts if he was seeing double on Friday night.
For the second straight week, a group of Rebels built a big lead as Tri-County cruised to a 38-7 win over the Generals.
With the loss, the Generals fall to 3-3 on the season. They will hit the road this week against Pickens Academy in Alabama.
For NCA coach Rob Roberts, the game was eerily similar to last week when they lost 35-8 to Leake Academy.
“It was like deja vu from last week, the same exact game,” Roberts said. “They had 35 on us in the middle of the second quarter. We came out and sacked them a couple of times on their first drive but after that we couldn’t do anything with them. We gave up a long touchdown run and then we just fell apart. We had several fumbles, interceptions and dropped balls. We just couldn’t do anything right.”
While the back-to-back losses were tough on the Generals, there is a silver lining.
“At least we came out of those two games injury free,” Roberts said. “I was worried about getting a lot of kids hurt. But we just didn’t compete. We looked better at times but gave up too many big plays and too many turnovers. You just can’t turn the ball over like that against good teams. We’ve got four games left and two of those are district games against teams we should be able to handle. Maybe we can get on a roll, win the district and host a first-round playoff game and see what happens.”
The two teams swapped punts to begin the contest but then things fell apart for the Generals. Cade Shepherd ripped off a 32-yard run and later scored on a 2-yard run with 7:17 left in the first.
From there, the Generals fumbled twice and Tri County scored on a 44-yard touchdown pass from Sheperd to Garrett Harmon with 5:35 left in the first. On the next possession, Shepherd scored on a 13-yard run with 3:32 left in the first for a 21-0 Tri-County lead.
After an NCA punt, Tri-County needed only one play as Shepherd hit Greyson Smith on a 43-yard touchdown pass with 2:56 left in the first for a 28-0 lead.
After fumbling again, NCA’s only highlight came on a Sage Gunn interception. But that was short lived as the Generals punted and Tri-County scored on an 85-yard run by Harmon to take a 35-0 lead into the half.
The Generals got their only score early in the third quarter when Braxton Rose recovered a Tri-County fumble. Logan Little then hit Gunn on a 66-yard touchdown pass with 7:15 left in the third. Ethan McDill’s PAT cut the lead to 35-7.
Tri-County added a fourth quarter field goal for the final margin of victory.
On the night, Little was 5-of-18 passing for 106 yards while Gunn had three catches for 99 yards. On defense, Austin Pippin had five tackles and two sacks while Rose had five tackles and a fumble recovery. Logan Tadlock added five tackles and Gunn had an interception.
