Newton’s football season came to an early end last week at the hands of one of the state’s top Class 2A teams.
Philadelphia scored early and often and beat visiting Newton 60-6 on Thursday night.
With the loss, Newton ends the season with an 0-10 record while Philadelphia improves to 9-1 overall. The Tornadoes will be the No. 1 seed out of Division 5-2A.
Second-year Newton coach Zach Grady was impressed with the Tornadoes.
“They are the best team we have played by far,” Grady said. “They are pretty good up front and ran the ball right at us. They have some good running backs and they didn’t even play their two good receivers. We only had six healthy linemen for the game and we were just beat up.”
The Tornadoes jumped out to a 20-0 lead as they got a 38- and 27-yard touchdown runs from Trey Crockett. Deiondrew Foxx hit Janaylon Dupree on a 10-yard touchdown pass as the Tornadoes led 20-0 with 3:48 left in the first quarter.
Newton scored its only points of the game on the ensuing drive as Lawrence Morris scored on a 2-yard with to cut the lead to 20-6 with 1:40 left in the first quarter.
From there, it was all Newton as Raedarius Triplett scored on a 79-yard run to make the score 28-6.
Newton gave the ball right back to Philly as Tyreke Snow threw an interception and the Tornadoes led 33-6.
Foxx added a 13-yard run and quarterback Asher Morgan scored on a 1-yard run as Philly led 47-6 at the half.
With a running clock in the second half, Philly added two more scored as Antuaze Brown scored on runs of 20 and 10 yards for Philly.
Grady said he hopes the Tigers laid the foundation for the future this season.
“We only had four seniors and we had about 35 kids coming back that got a chance to play,” Grady said. “We got a lot of freshmen and sophomores that started every game. The bottom line is we have to get better up front. We need some more bodies up there and need to get in the weight room and get a lot stronger. We have a lot of experience coming back and some guys with a bright future if they will stay with it and work hard in the weight room.”
Now was 6-of-11 passing for 86 yards to lead the Tigers while Isiah Johnson had one catch for 40 yards. Morris had three carries for 16 yards while Kezzerian Wash had three catches for 27 yards.
On defense, Anthony Smith had eight tackles on one for a loss while Derek Alford had seven tackles and one for a loss. Atavious Hardy and Desmond Moore also had five tackles on defense while 28 Hardy, 24 Reed and Brandon Sheppard each had three tackles apiece.
