PLYMOUTH – By the end of the night it was a war of attrition with the Plymouth Rockies winning that war over Northridge by a final of 36-13.

“That was a real physical contest – a classic NLC game with two coaching staffs that want tto play physical football,” said Plymouth head coach John Barron. “Both did at times successfully”

Northridge did it best first, putting together a 97 yard drive on their second possession that ate up most of the first quarter. It was Raider quarterback Nick Hooley highlighting the drive that put the Raiders ahead literally running up the middle to the score, but not without a cost. The Raiders lost Hooley on that possession to a broken leg and the game got more physical from there.

“That was on us,” said Barron who made a simple adjustment that made a big difference. “We practiced all week long with our outside linebackers concentrating on the quarterback and we really needed to get them on the dive the way they were blocking our ends. Once we got them to the sideline we shored that up.”

“I thought we were really, really physical,” said Barron. “I thought our kids really answered the ball. There was a lot of high impact collisions at the line of scrimmage. I thought our linebackers were really physical. (Brandt) Peters, and (Matt) Friar and (Caleb) Koss and (A.J.) Styres. And you have to give credit to our guys up front – (Jake) Stayton and (Sean) Masson and (Tristen) McMillen they really flew around out there and shut down the run game.

Heading to the halftime break with a 15-7 lead on the strength of the passing game of Jack Barron to Cam Eveland, and when Raider Bryce Miller picked up a punt and returned it 32 yards for a score things were tight at 15-13. The Rockie offense took over from there.

“We gave ourselves horrible field position to start (that drive), said Barron. “What I like about our kids is they have a great desire to overcome some pretty great odds right now. We aren’t asking them to do things right now that they really can’t do and I think that’s important.

“We are going to try and run option football. If we can’t do that we going to try to get to the wings or our split ends. We knew they were going to be stingy. We tried to jam it in there, but they played a lot of man coverage and we felt that was to our advantage with Cam (Eveland).”

Eveland ended the night with 75 receiving and a touchdown, he also ran for 22 more. Barron was 8 of 16 for two scores and 148 yards through the air, and added 97 more rushing.

Plymouth is now 4-0 with a trip to Elkhart Memorial next weekend. Northridge is 3-1

 

Score by Quarters

Northridge 7 0 6 0 – 13

Plymouth 0 15 15 6 – 36

Rushing – (Plymouth) Jack Barron 14-97, Jeremy Splix 14-23, Cam Eveland 2-22, Payton Skirvin 1-5, Benji Nixon 1-5. (Northridge) Brody Miller 13-44, Dean Ridenour 11-26, Nick Hooley 4-22, Kurtis Hochstetler 2-6.

Passing – Barron 8-16, 148 yds, Xavier Miller 6-16, 53 yds., Nick Hooley 1-3.

Receiving – Eveland 4 catches 75 yards. Hochstetler 2 catches 14 yards.

Tackles – Colten Schuler 9. Matt Miller 9.