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Northview cruises past Tiger Cubs in Saturday matinee
Mother Nature threw several wrenches into the week of preparation, as well as game day(s), for Northview’s football team.
Due to the unseasonably hot temperatures, the Knights were forced to practice at 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, which also caused Friday night’s kickoff at Greencastle to be pushed back 30 minutes. However, with 12 minutes left before the game was set to get underway, the Greencastle sky was lit up with several flashes of lightning that lasted for nearly two hours, forcing the matchup between the Knights and Tiger Cubs to be postponed until Saturday morning.
Despite the chaos that was out of its control, Northview accomplished what it set out to do when the team boarded the bus for John Fallis Field on Friday and then again on Saturday, leading to a dominating 44-7 win.
“I’m very happy with how our players handled the week,” said Northview head coach Mark Raetz. “I think it showed a sign of maturity and the strength of our seniors and our captains and our leaders on our team. They were able to stay focused even with the change of schedules and postponed games and delayed games. I think that’s a sign of a good team. Hopefully, we can continue to get better.”
And while the Knights found themselves cruising to their eighth straight win over Greencastle, it didn’t get off to as smooth of a start as the final score might have indicated.
Northview had five penalties – which was the final tally against the team – called on it in the first four minutes of the game, leading to a stagnated start on offense that played a part in keeping the visitors off the scoreboard in the first quarter.
Raetz said once they got the infractions figured out, they began to fire on all cylinders.
“We were getting a lot of penalties early,” said Raetz. “Once we started to eliminate those, we got going. Our big points of emphasis were protecting the football and not giving up the deep shots. I thought our kids did a good job of that. It was all a matter of executing better.”
And it showed.
Northview scored on its final eight drives to build a 44-0 lead that implemented the running clock for the first time this season.
The Knights did it on the ground with running back Slade Fell, who ran for 93 yards and two touchdowns to headline an area that Greencastle head coach Dave Stephens said opened up the passing game, which was strong for the second straight week as well.
Quarterback Colton Bath threw for 186 yards and two touchdowns, connecting with Gage Thompson and Avery Perry for the pair of scores, and ran for 14 yards and another touchdown.
“All of the credit has to go towards Northview,” said Stephens. “I’ve said it to anyone that would listen to me, but they might be the most talented team we play all season. That’s no disrespect to South Putnam or Linton or anyone else, but when you look at their ability to run, pass, defend and are well-coached, my hat goes off to coach Raetz and Northview.”
Despite finding themselves down by two scores at the break, the Tiger Cubs believed they were still in the game coming out of the locker room to begin the second half, but Stephens knew they needed a spark on offense to get out of the hole.
So, on fourth down at their own 21-yard line, which came on the first possession of the third quarter, he had a choice to make. Stephens could either punt the ball back to the Knights again or he could roll the dice and send the offense back onto the field.
The second-year head coach went with the latter of the two options, but tight end Brayden Monroe’s plunge up the middle was stopped after a one-yard gain, giving the ball back to Northview.
“We took a chance on fourth down with some bad field position, but it was one of those two-yard deals where I wanted to put some faith in them and see if we could spark our guys,” Stephens explained. “That’s a call that the stands won’t ever like, but I really wanted to show some faith in our team by saying, ‘Hey, I believe in you. Let’s see if we can get something going.’ We were just so inconsistent in the first half and had so many penalties – I don’t know if we had three consecutive plays without a penalty – and were three and out or four and out, I just thought if we could get some of that momentum back, maybe we could have gotten it going.”
The fourth down defensive stop by Northview that set up another touchdown for the offense served as a microcosm of the day that was in big spots for both teams.
Northview had a 40 percent (4-of-10) conversion rate on third down and a 100 percent (5-of-5) conversion rate on fourth down, which included its first score of the game, while Greencastle had a 13 percent (1-of-8) conversion rate on third down and a 0 percent conversion rate (0-for-1) on fourth down.
“Those third and fourth down plays are huge on both sides of the ball. Honestly, I think we’ve been pretty good at them the last two weeks,” said Raetz. “We still missed some opportunities, but we’ve been good on third and fourth down. We’re hoping we can keep that up moving into next week.”
Raetz credited the defense for shutting down Greencastle’s unique offensive attack. Northview held the hosts to 155 yards of total offense – with 61 yards coming on the final drive when the Knights possessed a 44-point lead – and kept them off the scoreboard until the 1:38 mark of the fourth quarter to help send them into Week 3 of the regular season with two wins in their pocket for the fourth consecutive year.
“Defensively, I thought we had a good game plan and had them scouted pretty well,” Raetz said. “They have some different concepts that they run. It’s a little bit different than most teams run, so we really had to rep those quite a bit this week. And even with the changes in schedules, our kids did a really good job of executing our game plan.”
Northview 44, Greencastle 7
Northview 0 16 21 7 — 44
Greencastle 0 0 0 7 — 7
Nv — Thompson 5 pass from Bath (Whitman kick), 10:21 2Q
Nv — Bath 1 run (Whitman kick missed), 4:29 2Q
Nv — Whitman 25 kick, :13.4 2Q
Nv — Perry 16 pass from Bath (Whitman kick), 10:02 3Q
Nv — Fell 3 run (Whitman kick), 7:59 3Q
Nv — Fell 5 run (Whitman kick), 9:04 4Q
Nv — McCluskey 24 run (Whitman kick), 8:40 4Q
Gc — Blodgett 5 run (Williamson kick), 1:38 4Q
Nv Gc
First downs 13 9
Rushes-yards 31-168 16-84
Passing 186 71
Comp-Att-Int 10-20-0 11-21-0
Return yards 25 174
Punts-avg. 1-31.0 6-26.5
Fumbles-lost 1-0 0-0
Penalties-yards 5-40 11-90
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing — Northview, Bath 5-14, Fell 19-93, Perry 2-6, McCluskey 4-36, C.Schimmel 1-19. Greencastle, Pingleton 3-18, Monroe 3-6, Stephens 2-(-1), Blodgett 9-56, Hites 2-5.
Passing — Northview, Bath 10-20-2 186, C.Schimmel 0-0-0 0. Greencastle, Stephens 11-21-0 71.
Receiving — Northview, Perry 4-74, Thompson 3-52, Sutherland 2-24, Raetz 2-47. Greencastle, Welker 2-12, Williamson 2-15, Adams 3-35, Pingleton 1-3, Long 3-6.
Next — Northview (2-0) hosts Sullivan and Greencastle (0-2) visits West Vigo Friday.