North Johnston Drops Hurricanes To Tropical Depression
November 10th, 2007 Posted in High School Football, High School Playoffs
Photo: North Johnston football vs Pamlico; EJ Knight run
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By Greg Baker:
The Panthers of North Johnston were transported two and a half hours east from their home hunting grounds and released from their cage in Pamlico County. The first round playoff game pitted the 7-4 Panthers against the 8-3 Pamlico Hurricanes. The Canes came into the night riding a three game winning streak. However, that didn’t necessarily mean that luck was in their corner. In last week’s victory over Topsail, the Hurricanes lost their leading rusher #20 Aaron Northern when he broke his leg. Northern accounted for and average of 120 yards of rushing per game. Yep, that hurts!
If you went to this night’s game hoping for four quarters of football, you were most likely disappointed. The first half held all the fireworks as the third and fourth quarters resulted in no scoring by either team and a game of “ I don’t want this football, you take it “ broke out. Both teams would end the night with five turnovers.
Here’s the first half breakdown.
• On NJ’s first possession, #25 EJ Knight rumbled for a 45 yard touch down.
• On Pamlico’s second offensive possession, they fumbled on the NJ 6 yard line.
• To begin the second quarter, #25 Knight fumbles the ball on his on 13 yard line.
• #7 Fraquan James of Pamlico is picked off on a halfback pass by #5 Pierre Dickerson.
• #14 Cliff Holloman completes a 31 yard TD pass to #5 Dickerson.
• #4 Ed Bowels of NJ intercepts football on the 4 yard line with Pamlico driving for a TD.
• #20 Garrett Grady of NJ kicks 25 yard field goal.
• #5 Dickerson intercepts #7 James again on the 10 yard line with the Canes threatening.
• #14 Holloman completes 81 yard TD pass to #10 Travis Pope with 34 seconds left in the first half.
At halftime the score was NJ 24 and Pamlico 0. That also happened to be the final score of the evening. Like I said, the second half was not a thing of beauty offensively, but the NJ defense did play one heck of a solid game.
Next up for NJ is James Kennan who defeated Rosewood in their first round game to improve their record to a perfect 12-0. Kennan is a 2 seed and is coached by former Panther head coach Ken Avent. Kennan will be highly favored in the game but I’ll leave you with current NJ coach Tom Nelson’s words to his squad following tonight’s victory. “Let’s go in there, bust the door down and shock the world!” Enough said…
