Newton County Academy football coach Rob Roberts knew his team needed to get off to a good start against Centreville on wet, soggy field on Friday night.
The Generals did the exact opposite of that.
The Generals fumbled the first two times they touched the football as the visiting Tigers used a stingy defense and recovered five fumbles to take a 32-0 win over the Generals on Friday night.
With the loss, the Generals fall to 3-7 on the season and made the Class 3A playoffs as the No. 12 seed and will travel to Carroll Academy on Friday night.
The Generals received the opening kick in a heavy downpour and Hayden Wall fumbled the kick as Centreville scooped it up and raced 18 yards for a touchdown. The try for two failed and the Tigers led 6-0.
“We knew we had to get off to a good start and they kick it off to us and we fumble it and they run it in for a touchdown,” Roberts said. “Then fumble and lose it on the first snap of our next drive and on the second snap of our next drive. So, we touched the ball four times and lost three fumbles. They fumbled a couple of times but we never got any and that was really the difference in the game. In a game like that when you know it’s going to be wet and sloppy, the team that makes the least amount of turnovers is going to win.”
After falling behind 6-0, the Generals then fumbled on their next two possessions as quarterback Zander Meeks had trouble handling the snap from under center. The second one gave Centreville the ball at the NCA 22. The Tigers then scored in three plays, finishing off the drive with a 2-yard run to go up 12-0.
Centreville last score in the first half came when Kemp Alderman had a punt blocked to give the Tigers the ball at the NCA 49. From there, the Tigers went on a nine-play drive and scored on a 4-yard touchdown pass to go up 18-0.
“I didn’t think we played that bad on defense,” Roberts said. “We gave them some short fields and they just kept on coming right at us. They only had one big play on us and that was in the fourth quarter. Our kids played hard on defense, we just couldn’t get anything going on offense.”
In the second half, the two teams traded possessions to start the half before NCA gave the Tigers the ball on their own 30 after being stopped short on fourth down. The Tigers then went 30 yards in seven plays and scored on a 1-yard run to go up 24-0.
The last score came on the first play of the fourth quarter as the Tigers broke free on an 80-yard run and converted the two-point conversion for the final margin.
The Generals had 101 yards rushing and 22 passing as Colby Hollingsworth led the way with 80 yards on 22 carries.
On defense, Hollingsworth had 14 tackles while Alderman had 10 stops. Hayden West and Lee Hollingsworth each had nine tackles apiece while Hayze West had eight tackles. Jordan Mason and Trey Terrell each had six tackles apiece while Zach Evans had five tackles and a fumble recovery.
This week’s game
The Generals squeaked into the playoffs as the No. 12 seed after winning a tiebreaker over Benton.
The reward will be a trip to Carroll Academy to take on the Rebels, who are 8-2 on the season and beat the Generals 38-6 in week 5 of the regular season.
“They are about the same,” Roberts said of Carroll. “They run the same thing that they have run all year. When we played them the first time, it was 8-6 at the half and I thought we played them pretty tough. But we gave up some big plays in the second half and they were able to pull away with it. It will be a tough game up there.”
The winner of the game will travel to Sylva Bay for the second round of the playoffs.
