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Northview runs over Greencastle
Coming off a win over Terre Haute North that exuded just about every emotion possible last week, Northview’s football team took care of business Friday night at Greencastle without letting any lingering hangover effect take place.
Northview, led by a strong rushing attack that the offense hangs its hat on and a defense that made big plays in the most important situations, routed the Tiger Cubs by a score of 39-7, opening conference play with a win and improving its record to 2-0 on the season.
“It’s always nice to win,” said Northview head coach Mark Raetz. “I do think in the first half we left some plays out there. We had a couple of turnovers. It was a little sloppier than we would have liked. But at the same time, we were able to get the job done on the road in a conference game, so it’s a good win.”
How the two Western Indiana Conference opponents fared against the other’s rushing attack was likely going to have a major impact on which team catapulted itself to the top of the conference standings and which one dropped down into the basement.
Northview ran for 351 yards in the victory against Terre Haute North last week while Greencastle’s lead back Lamar Moore rushed for 118 yards and three touchdowns against Indianapolis Crispus Attucks.
On Friday, the three-headed backfield of quarterback Kyle Cottee (135 yards) and running backs Imer Holman (112 yards) and Tyler Lee (100 yards) bested last Friday’s total for the Knights – and nearly surpassed it in three quarters as the trio each had 100 or more yards on the ground with one quarter to go – as they, along with Josiah Bennett, JayVeon Taylor and Colton Bath accounted for 434 yards and all six touchdowns.
“That’s kind of what we expect,” said Raetz of the offense’s running game. “We expect our line to be the leaders. They opened up some good running lanes … Running for over 400 yards is always pretty impressive.”
Defensively, the Knights weren’t able to hold Moore in-check statistically as the Tiger Cub star scampered for 157 yards on 23 carries.
However, Northview’s defense was able to keep Moore – and the Greencastle offense – off the scoreboard until there was only three minutes left in the contest, which by that point, the running clock had been going for quite some time and the score was out of hand.
That wasn’t the case in the first half when the Knights made some monster stops, though.
Greencastle’s first four drives ended in the following fashion: turnover on downs, missed field goal, turnover on downs, turnover on downs.
Making matters worse for the Tiger Cubs – and also injected energy into the Northview sideline – was the fact that all four drives concluded with the hosts being in scoring range.
Raetz said making those stops and then turning them into points was a game changer and allowed the visitors to head into the locker room with a three-score advantage that was built upon during the second half of action to finish off the victory.
“Those were huge because they were moving the ball pretty well on us. (Moore) was running really hard and their o-line was opening up some holes. We had some missed tackles, but when it came down to it, our guys were ready to keep them out of the end zone and keep them from scoring,” Raetz said of the Northview defensive performance.
Northview 6 14 14 7 — 39
Greencastle 0 0 0 7 — 7
Scoring
1st Quarter
Nv — Lee 57 run (Alexander kick missed), :0.0
2nd Quarter
Nv — Holman 9 run (Cottee run failed), 5:17
Nv — Cottee 1 run (Alexander kick), :0.0
3rd Quarter
Nv — Cottee 12 run (Alexander kick), 5:20
Nv — Holman 12 run (Alexander kick), :40.5
4th Quarter
Nv — Taylor 9 run (Alexander kick missed), 7:23
Gc — Miller 4 run (Williamson kick), 3:00
Statistics
| … | Nv | Gc |
| First downs | 22 | 10 |
| Rushes-yards | 48-434 | 38-200 |
| Passing | 50 | 45 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 2-5-1 | 4-7-0 |
| Return yards | 15 | 97 |
| Punts-avg | 0-0.0 | 4-20.0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 2-1 | 0-0 |
| Penalties-yards | 3-25 | 4-33 |
Individual Statistics
Rushing — Northview, Holman 10-112, Cottee 19-135, Lee 7-100, Bennett 2-20, Taylor 8-55, Bath 2-12. Greencastle, Miller 4-13, Moore 23-157, Carrington 10-25, Brennan 1-5.
Passing — Northview, Cottee 2-5-0 50. Greencastle, Miller 4-7-0 45.
Receiving — Northview, Perry 2-50. Greencastle, Brennan 2-37, Huff 1-3, Carrington 1-5.