North Lenoir dominates line of scrimmage in win over West Craven

North Lenoir’s Jaden Kilpatrick (9) and Malik Jones (23) celebrate with Justin Cobb after his interception in the fourth quarter of the Hawks’ win over West Craven Friday. Photo by Neuse News

LA GRANGE — Bear Bryant and Vince Lombardi would have been mighty proud of the North Lenoir football team Friday night at Bullock Field.

Taking a page from the coaching legends’ playbook, the Hawks used a hard-nosed, smash mouth running game, and a physical, aggressive, opportunistic defense to bludgeon Eastern Carolina 2A Conference power West Craven 20-10 to move into sole possession of second place in the league standings.

By virtue of its victory, NL (7-1, 2-1) holds the tiebreaker over the Eagles (5-3, 3-1), who have also lost just one conference game.

“The kids played their butts off against an outstanding football team,” NL coach Jim Collins said. “We had a game plan, we executed it almost to perfection, and we got a big win on Homecoming over one of the top teams in our league.”

The Hawks did it by dominating both sides of the line of scrimmage. NL ran the ball 51 times for 269 yards and dominated time of possession by a margin of 32:39 to 15:21.

Leading by just one score early in the fourth quarter, the Hawks put together a textbook 14-play drive that took over nine minutes off the clock and sucked the air out of the Eagle defense.

Although the Hawks failed to score on that lengthy drive, they did just mere moments later when WC quarterback Trent Casey was picked off by Justin Cobb to set up Ny’jai Koonce’s soul-crushing 23-yard TD scamper with 1:43 remaining.

“They have an explosive offense (West Craven entered the game averaging 36.4 points per contest), so we knew our best chance to win was to keep them off the field,” Collins said. “We controlled the clock with our running game, and our defense was just outstanding when they did have the ball.”

Yes, that defense.

The Hawks intercepted Casey twice, sacked him three times, including a strip sack in the first quarter, and held the high-scoring Eagles to just seven first downs and 98 total yards.

West Craven started five of its six first half possessions either at midfield or in NL territory, yet netted just 10 points.

“Their quarterback is very intelligent, and their running back is fast and shifty,” Hawks defensive coordinator Reid Rouse said. “Our game plan was to try and confuse them while staying aggressive. We did an outstanding job of that tonight.”

The NL defense made just one mistake, a blunder in coverage that led to the Eagles’ only touchdown, a 35-yard pass from Casey to Tyquan Kearny on a drive that started on the Hawks 42 after a nice kickoff return was aided by a 15-yard late hit out-of-bounds penalty.

The Eagles other score, a 31-yard field goal, came after a shanked punt from the end zone gave WC possession at the NL 22.

“They had great field possession several times in the first half, and the defense could have folded,” Rouse said. “Instead, they bowed their backs and came up with a big play time and again.”

The second half was a different story as the Eagles failed to score and never crossed midfield.

“I thought we had a good plan on defense coming in, and the guys really made the coaches look smart,” Rouse said. “They did everything we asked; I’m not sure we could’ve played better on that side of the ball.”

The Hawks scored first with 3:47 left in the opening quarter. Quarterback Filipo Sualevai executed a perfect play fake and connected with Koonce out of the backfield for a 15-yard scoring strike.

The TD came on a third-and-9 play and was set up by Jaden Kilpatrick’s 57-yard run to start the possession.

Kilpatrick finished with a game-high 120 yards on 16 carries.

The Eagles scored the next 10 points before NL backup quarterback Auston Dildy worked some magic of his own.

Playing a first-half series as he often does in relief of Sualevai, Dildy marched his team down the field from the NL 39, and on third-and-seven from the WC 18, fumbled the snap, picked the ball off the ground, and then somehow emerged from the skirmish to race 18 yards down the right sideline to paydirt.

“The kid made an unbelievable play,” Collins said. “That’s why we have complete faith in him when Filipo (who also plays defense) needs a short rest.”

On Koonce’s game-clinching TD, the senior captain broke several tackles and ran over a couple of defenders, a fierce run that personified the Hawks’ physical dominance of the contest.

NORTH LENOIR 20, WEST CRAVEN 10

West Craven      7              3              0              0—10

North Lenoir      7              7              0              6—20   

First Quarter

NL—Ny’jai Koonce 15 pass from Filipo Sualevai (Trey Kivett kick), 3:47

WC—Tyquan Kearny 35 pass from Trent Casey (Decker kick), 2:30

Second Quarter

WC—Decker 31 Field Goal, 8:55

NL—Auston Dildy 18 run (Kivett kick), 4:47

Fourth Quarter

NL—Koonce 23 run (kick failed), 1:43

                                WC         NL          

First Downs        7              12

Rushes-yards     22-28     51-269

Passing                 6-15-2   1-3-0

Passing yards     68           15

Total yards          96           284

Punts-avg.          4-36.0    3-25.3

Fumbles-lost      1-1          2-1

Penalties             4-45       9-81

Individual Statistics

RUSHING—West Craven: DayQuan Shelton 9-22, Trent Casey 7-13, TaQuandre Cherry 1-4, Silas Wallace 3-(minus 1), Arthur Abrams 2-(minus 10). North Lenoir: Jaden Kilpatrick 16-120, Malik Jones 14-62, Ny’jai Koonce 10-47, Auston Dildy 1-18, Filipo Sualevai 9-13, Jelly Shackleford 1-9.

PASSING—West Craven: Casey 6-15-2 68. North Lenoir: Sualevai 1-3-0 15.

RECEIVING—West Craven: Tyquan Kearny 1-35, Shelton 3-22, Abrams 2-11. North Lenoir: Koonce 1-15.