North Pike dropped its first district game of the season 21-13 at home against Lawrence County Friday night.
Early in the game, Lawrence County’s Charl’tez Nunnery had a long run to the North Pike (3-3, 0-1) 25-yard-line.
However, it wasn’t much later before his teammate, Quitten Brown, scored the first touchdown for the Cougars.
Dylan Adams of the Jaguars ran more than 60 yards for a impressive touchdown followed by a successful Kreider Henderson PAT. With the game tied 7-7, the two teams continued their contention for gridiron conquest. Quitten Brown ran 43 yards to score Lawrence County another touchdown. After a kick by Gage White, the Cougars were ahead 14-7.
Lawrence County ran for a 98-yard touchdown to extend its lead to 21-7.
Jaguars head coach Chris Smith said three plays cost his team in the loss.
“We gave up three big plays and that was the difference in the ball game,” he said. “I thought the defense played well all night except for the three big plays. The offense kind of spit and sputtered. We didn’t have a real good night. I don’t think we were really focused when we got here, but they played hard after halftime, they came back and fought.”
The Jaguars did make things closer down the stretch.
As the third quarter progressed, the Cougars came close to scoring and extending their lead, but North Pike recovered the ball on a turnover.
Even though the ball was in the Jaguars’ possession, they were not able to score until the final period. The game’s finale was an intense fourth quarter, in which Marquez Lee scored a touchdown for North Pike to cut the lead to 21-13, but the Jaguars were unable to get any closer.
Injuries also proved costly in the loss.
“We’ve just got so many injuries right now,” Smith said. “I don’t make excuses for us, but we’ve got a bunch of injuries, and a bunch of folks banged up.”
Junior quarterback Tez Fountain came out of the game with an injury, and freshman Alijah Martin entered the game.
“I think we’re still building,” Smith said. “Things are still coming around. Every time we get something going and feel like we’ve got something set, we get somebody else hurt. So we’ve got to juggle people and that’s what we’re fighting right now...I was proud of our quarterback. The young ninth grade quarterback came in at the end when Tez got banged up, and I felt like he did a good job.”
Smith said Martin will be a good backup for the Jaguars until Fountain returns. The head coach plans on having his team bounce back by immediately working to fix its mistakes.
“We’re going to go back to work Monday,” Smith said. “We’re going to try to get people healthy, and try to move some people around because of injuries and see what we can do.”
Smith gave the Cougars credit for playing well.
“We knew Lawrence County was a good football team and got their big running back and you can see he’s a super athlete,” he said. “He makes a difference on their team, he plays both sides, and he’s tough. When he got back, the whole team got inspired for him being back too, and we knew it was going to be tough. And the kids knew it was going to be tough. They went down fighting, and I’m proud of them for that.”
North Pike is at Florence in another district matchup at 7 p.m. Friday.
