LELAND–One week after fumbling their way to an early 12-0 deficit in a 40-13 loss to Pender County rival Topsail, the Trask High School football team was at it again–fumbling four times and losing two–and the host Scorpions of North Brunswick were more than willing to take advantage of the mistakes.
Senior quarterback Randy Clark was 5-for-6 for 91 yards–all in the first half–tossing three touchdown passes and scoring another on a 2-yard run, and Shack Graham added a pair of scores as North Brunswick shutout Trask 47-0 Friday in a non-conference football game on the Scorpions’ home field.
A 2-yard net punt set North Brunswick (2-0) up on Trask’s 33 yard line early in the first quarter and the Scorpions needed just five plays to open a 7-0 lead, and a fumble on the ensuing kickoff gave North excellent field position at the Titans’ 10-yard line and four plays later the Scorpions were in the end zone again in making it 14-0 with just 6:48 gone off the game clock, and it pretty much went downhill from there for Coach Glenn Sellers Titans.
“We made a big jump from last week (a 19-9 North win over Whiteville),” North Brunswick Coach Garry Bishop said. “It’s a young offensive line where everyone is an underclassmen and they’ve been working hard and showed a lot of improvement.”
The offensive line gave Clark plenty of time to set up in the backfield and he responded with touchdown tosses of 29 yards to Luke Caison to open the scoring, 38 yards to Kevon Perkins in upping the advantage to 21-0, and 18 yards to Brandon Addison as the lead mushroomed to 35-0 with 65 seconds remaining on the first-half clock.
“We had a couple of quarterback candidates that did not come back and we moved Randy from tight end and he came in and picked up the system and has done an excellent job,” Bishop said.
While the North offense was putting up five first-half touchdowns, the Scorpion defense was causing havoc in the Trask backfield. The Titans (0-2) ran just 26 plays from scrimmage in the first half–24 running plays and two incomplete passes–and four of those plays went for negative yardage and another two produced zero yards. The Titans managed just 39 first-half offensive yards.
“It wasn’t perfect but I’d say we played a pretty good all-around game on offense, defense and special teams,” Bishop said.
The Scorpion defense kept the pressure on in causing the four punts to travel 2, 28, 27, and 17 yards. All four short punts set the Scorpions up in the Titans’ end of the field. That allowed for scoring drives of 33 yards, 10 yards, 38 yards, 36 yards, and 38 yards on five of the first six time they touched the ball (a fumble curtailed what would have been a 40-yard drive).
Leading 35-0 the Scorpions took the second-half kickoff and mounted their longest scoring drive of the evening. Moving from their own 20-yard line North got a 16-yard run from Clark, a 59-yard run by DeShawn Montgomery on the second play, and a 5-yard pass play from Clark to Bryan Perkins to move to the Titans’ 5-yard line. A holding penalty temporarily stalled the drive, and a fumble cost North another 11 yards and Montgomery finished off the drive with a 6-yard scoring run.
A 5-yard run by Graham with 42.1 seconds left ended the scoring. The Titans had the ball for one last drive but a fumble ended their final possession–and the game.
Trask returns home next week to face West Columbus. North Brunswick will go on the road in an attempt to avenge a 20-6 loss to East Columbus last year, and Bishop knows the game against the 1-0 (a 28-15 win over West Columbus on Aug. 23) Gators.
“They beat up on us pretty good last year and they have a lot of guys back, and they will definitely be fired up for this game,” Bishop said. “It will definitely be a physical football game.”
Trask 0- 0- 0-0= 0
N. Brunswick 21-14-12-0=47
First quarter
NB – Luke Caison 29 pass from Randy Clark (Armondo Lopez kick), 7:05
NB – Randy Clark 2 run (Armondo Lopez kick), 5:12
NB – Kevon Perkins 38 pass from Randy Clark (Armondo Lopez kick), 2:39
Second quarter
NB – Shak Graham 35 run (Armondo Lopez kick), 11:34
NB – Brandon Addison 18 pass from Randy Clark (Armondo Lopez kick), 1:05
Third quarter
NB – DeShawn Montgomery 6 run (Kick failed), 7:18
NB – Shak Graham 5 run (Kick failed), 0:42.1
Team Statistics: N. Brunswick Trask
First downs 11 7
Penalties 4-25 4-25
Rushing 26-202 40-90
Passing 5-6-91 2-6-15
Fumbles/Lost 3/1 4/2
Punts 1-53-53.0 4-74-18.5
Individual Statistics:Rushing: (NB) – Randy Clark 8-70, Shak Graham 6-30, Bryan Perkins 3-27, DeShawn Montgomery 4-63, Miguel Cairo, (T) – Dashaun Walker 6-20, Jarquell James 3-19, Rakeus Graham 7-18, Wesley Perry 5-17, Dalen Faison 4-13. Passing: (NB) – Randy Clark 5-6-91. (T) – Dylan Kraft 2-6-15. Receiving: (NB) – Kevon Perkins 2-40, Luke Caison 1-29, Brandon Addison 1-18, Kyheame Cheatham 1-4. (T) – Jerel Hockman 1-8, Dashaun Walker 1-7.
