FB: Best Of Both Worlds For North Montgomery

Reprinted Courtesy of:
The Paper of Montgomery County
www.thepaper24-7.com

LINDEN – Isaac McGaughey likes the sound of the North Montgomery High School football team’s newfound title.

They
ended their one-year county championship drought Friday night and added
an even bigger, more dubious crown to their list – Sagamore Athletic
Conference champions.

With the Chargers running rampant over
visiting county- and conference rival Crawfordsville, they’re one win
away from an undefeated regular season.

They haven’t done that
in 23 years. That’s the next accomplishment on the North Montgomery
High School senior running back’s list.

McGaughey and senior
running back Ethan Carpenter each rushed for two touchdowns and Class
3A No. 5 North Montgomery ran for 235 yards overall in a 48-27 win over
Crawfordsville.

“Just the offensive line, I guess. That’s all
there is to it,” said McGaughey about their performance. He now has
five touchdowns in two games against county opponents, after scoring
three against Southmont in a Sept. 5 victory. “We came out fired up for
a big game. There’s no stopping us right now. We’re feeling pretty
good.”

North Montgomery (8-0, 6-0 SAC) became the first
Montgomery County high school football team to win the conference title
in 12 years.

The Chargers were the last team to win the
championship doing so in 1996, the year they won the second of their
back-to-back Indiana High School Athletic Association Class 2A State
championships.

“We put up our goals early in the season to
play for three championships – county, conference and sectional. That’s
why you play football at North Montgomery,” Chargers’ coach Charley
German said. “We sealed the county [Friday], nobody can catch us in the
conference because they all have two losses. Now, it’s onto next week.”

They’ll aim for their shot on keeping a perfect regular season next Friday when they travel to conference foe Frankfort.

Nearly every conference team has had trouble slowing North Montgomery down. Crawfordsville was no exception.

After
punting on their first two drives, the Chargers scored touchdowns on
their next six straight possessions – four in the first half and their
opening two of the second half – and led by as many as 26 points.

Two
scores came from McGaughey (12 and six yards), two came from Carpenter
(17 and 14 yards) and two came from sophomore quarterback Clayton Dale
(three and one yards).

McGaughey rushed 14 times for 97 yards, while Carpenter had 14 carries for 90 yards.

And
when the two big backs weren’t shouldering the load, Dale (10-of-11,
165 yards) was hitting all his targets in that no-huddle offense.

“We’re
such a fast paced team and there are so many different threats in
different areas,” Carpenter said. “We’ve got so many star players, it’s
crazy.”

Crawfordsville (4-4, 4-2 SAC) suffered its second
consecutive loss and its offense struggled at times with junior running
back Craig Fairley getting shut down in the first half.

North Montgomery limited him to just 43 yards on 14 carries in the first half and kept him from breaking out on any long runs.

Fairley
had only two runs of 10-plus yards, with his longest coming on a
29-yard scamper near the end of the third quarter and the Chargers
ahead by more than four touchdowns.

He finished with game with 133 yards on 25 carries.

“I
**** to say too much because I think we’ll play these guys in two weeks
but you have to try to get Fairley to run side-to-side, get him going
east and west,” German said.

Athenians’ senior quarterback
Brett McKinney had a solid night – going 8-of-10 for 147 yards and
throwing for three touchdown passes.

He hit senior wide
receiver Brett Linn on a 69-yard bomb in the first quarter to cut the
Chargers’ lead to 8-6, then hit senior wide receiver Jordan Boykin for
two short scores (five and six yards) in the fourth quarter.

But
Crawfordsville only had Linn’s long scoring play and couldn’t slow down
North Montgomery’s offense, which accumulated 400 total yards.

“They had big plays,” Crawfordsville coach Rex Ryker said. “Their offense is a machine.”

Now,
in their final regular-season, county- and conference rivalry game, the
Athenians run into a Southmont (3-5, 2-4 SAC) team buoyed with
confidence.

The Mounties have won their last two games – both
in conference play over Frankfort and Western Boone – and have their
first two-win conference season since 2003.

“We’ve been
through quite a bit of adversity and that makes things a little bit
tougher,” Ryker said. “I’m sure our next opponent will not have any
sympathy for us.”