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North 45 Henderson County 10 - Central Stadium Aug. 24, 2007

Game Stats    Game Recap   

Offense

Offensive line blocking scores:

Johnson                 Allgood                  Todd                       Kuhlenhoelter                      Douglas                 Borman                                

79.6%                         82.1%                 82.4%                           80.0%                                 81.3%                      83.4%                 

Defense

Game Recap

FIRST QUARTER

When teams from the Bluegrass State come into town, visions of sleek racehorses, sun bonnets, and mint juleps come to mind.  When the Huskies squared off against Henderson County's Colonels, it was apparent there definitely were thoroughbreds in Central Stadium.  Unfortunately for the visitors, these thoroughbreds were all wearing the Green and White silks native to North High School.

Of course, the disparity of speed and style wasn't quite so apparent at the opening gun.

Henderson County took the kickoff and began a methodical, deliberate offensive march down the field.  Settling for four yards here and five yards there, the Colonels kept the ball for 16 plays as they pounded the North interior line for 60 yards rushing.  It wasn't until North's elite linebacker corps {consisting of LB Clinton Brown, George Quarles, and Larry Merriweather) made a series of stops inside the 25 yard line that Henderson County's drive stalled.

Brown made a pair of plays on first and second down.  On first down, he got a hand on the Colonel running back just as it appeared the RB had found a crease in the defense to run through.  With Quarles and company trailing the play, the runner was held for a short gain.  On second down, when DB Cory Hunter forced the quarterback to forego an option pitch and turn inside, Brown was waiting to stop the QB for no gain.

On third down, Merriweather read the option play from his outside linebacker perch and nearly grabbed the Colonel QB's pitch to the trailing running back.  As it was, the play netted a six yard loss and forced Henderson to settle for a field goal.  North received the ensuing kickoff trailing 3-0.

And then, in horse racing parlance, the bugler blew "First Call" and the thoroughbreds, also known as Messrs. Pendleton, Parkman, Merriweather, and Hunter, went to the starting gate.

North broke from the post like a Triple Crown contender and seldom looked back for the rest of the game.

Getting a good lead block from senior Brent Williams, Darrion Fletcher returned the kickoff up near the 30 yard line.  On the first play from scrimmage, Merriweather took advantage of a pancake block from OG Quintez Todd, juke-stepped the hapless Henderson outside linebacker, picked up a perfect downfield screening block from WR Cory Hunter, and gained 12 yards before being forced out of bound.

On the second play, QB Dion Pendleton lined up under center and dropped back into the protection of a perfect pocket.  The offensive line of OT Cory Allgood, OG Quintez Todd, C Mike Foster, OG Josh Douglas, and OT Daniel Borman provided a shield that was text book--and Pendleton hit WR Ryan Parkman with a 20 yard strike down the left sideline.

Unfortunately, it was to be the last time for the foreseeable future that offensive line quintet would play together at full strength.

On North's third play from scrimmage, you could almost hear the bell ring in the starting gate to get the horses off to the races.  Running what looked to be a 30 Option play, Pendleton executed one of the finest fake handoffs at the line of scrimmage that's ever been seen at Central Stadium.  With Foster manhandling the nose tackle, Douglas screening off the middle linebacker, Todd overwhelming his man, and Borman blowing the end out of the way, only the Colonel left tackle stood between North and a wide open field.

For a fleeting second, the ball appeared in mid-air at the end of Pendleton's hand.  It appeared to everyone watching--including the unblocked left defensive tackle--that he had slid the ball into Merriweather's grasp.  The defender pounced on Merriweather and drug him to the ground without mercy.

Dion Pendleton had other things on his mind, however--things like how fast he could retract the ball from Merriweather's gut and sprint through the open hole to daylight.  Like a true thoroughbred, he used his great field vision to spot the opening into the right hand side of the Henderson secondary and then turned on the speed down the sideline in a race toward the finish line.

He won the race by four lengths and in just three plays the Huskies had a lead that they would never relinquish.

The play cost the Huskies the services of C Mike Foster, who injured his knee when a Colonel fell on him as he followed through on his block.  Foster could be seen on crutches on the North sideline for the rest of the evening.  The aggressive play by Henderson continued on the extra point play when they were penalized for roughing K Kyle Horstman.

Henderson County coughed up the ball deep in their own territory on their next possession and the Huskies made them pay for the error.  Two runs by Merriweather moved the ball to the 8 yard line and Pendleton popped WR Cory Hunter with an 8 yard scoring toss.  Within four minutes and running only a handful of offensive plays, North had turned a 3 point deficit into an 11 point lead.

Despite incurring yet another roughing the kicker penalty on the extra-point play, Kyle Horstman managed a long kick-off that took an odd bounce inside the 10 yard line and DB Stephen Jackson made the tackle that would bottle up the Colonels inside the 10 yard line.  They spent the remainder of the first quarter in their own territory.

SECOND QUARTER 

Forced to punt early in the second quarter, it was time for the Colonels to catch another glimpse of North's speed-at-its-finest.  With North steadily moving the ball up field, the two teams squared off at the Henderson 40 yard line.  This time Pendleton found Hunter, who was lined up in the slot to the left, with a pass that the receiver caught behind the line of scrimmage.  Hunter took off towards the left sideline and had actually gained a few yards when his path down the sideline was closed by a bevy of maroon and white defenders. 

With a Colonel grasping at his jersey, the receiver gave ground and began to reverse his field.  Going to his right, Hunter ran as far as ten yards behind the line of scrimmage as he continued to look for daylight and blockers.  When he hit the right hash mark, he cut straight up field with a wall of blockers to his left.  Cutting and running for the flag, Hunter found the end zone.  The thrilling reception had accounted for 40 yards in the official scorer's log, but had traversed nearly 80 yards on the field.

With Horstman's third conversion, the score was 21-3 and it appeared that a rout was on.  Henderson County, however, was not convinced that they were beaten and manufactured another long drive that resulted in a Colonel touchdown and North's advantage was down to 11 points.

Darrion Fletcher returned the Henderson kick-off out past the thirty yard line.  After an incomplete pass and a short run, it appeared that perhaps momentum might have begun to swing towards the Colonels.

Faced with 3rd down and 8, yet another Husky thoroughbred was called to the paddock: WR Ryan Parkman.  With Pendleton feeling pressure from the pass rush, he was forced to quickly move to his right.  A defender was nearly upon him when he threw a ball that seemed to float--Pendleton's footing had been poor due to the rush and it appeared that the pass would be intercepted.

Matched up against a taller defender, Parkman timed his leap for the ball perfectly.  Using his left hand to deflect the defenders outstretched arm, the senior wide-receiver tipped the ball slightly with his right hand and stopped the flight of the ball downfield.  With his legs tangled with the defensive back, both players fell to the ground.  Parkman twisted in the air and landed on his back and his right hand guided the deflected ball down onto his chest.  Grabbing the ball with both hands, he gave North a first down at the Henderson 40 yard line.

Instead of facing a punt situation and giving the ball back to the Colonels in good field position, North now had the ball in Henderson territory.  While later plays would be heralded as 'back breakers' and 'show stoppers', it was this play that stopped Henderson's momentum when it was at it's highest.

On the ensuing play, QB Pendleton took off on a sprint around left end.  With T Daniel Borman leading the way and Parkman and Hunter providing downfield blocks, Pendleton recorded his second forty-yard-touchdown-run of the game.  North now had a 17 point lead and enough breathing room to weather the final gasp from the Colonels.

With five minutes remaining in the first half, Henderson County set off on what would be their final drive of the night.  Again effectively using inside traps and counter plays, the Colonels marched the ball down to the North three yard line with under 20 seconds to play.  For some reason, despite having punished the Huskies interior defense on the drive, Henderson's quarterback dropped back to pass and threw to his tight end.

It was a fateful decision.

LB Larry Merriweather stepped in front of the pass and took off the other direction.  With the pass having been thrown into the center of the field, the fleet footed linebacker had only the quarterback to beat. 

He beat him easily.

97 yards later, Merriweather had recorded the second-longest interception return for touchdown in fifty years of North football.  Only Jimmy Thomas' dramatic 102 yard return to preserve a 1963 win against Reitz that broke the Panthers' 21 game win streak had gone further.  Thomas' pick off could not have been better punctuated, however, as Merriweather treated the fans with a head over heels "flip" into the end zone.

When FB Travis Carlisle took a pitch around right end for a two point conversion to give the Huskies a 35-10 lead, for all intents and purposes the game was over.

SECOND HALF

The final stanza was not without further demonstration of North's speed and execution.  On the first play from scrimmage, Dion Pendleton put his name into the North record books.  Faking a handoff to Merriweather, Pendleton tore free from one tackler in the backfield, shucked another at the line of scrimmage, bounced past another at the thirty yard line, and put a move on the final defender at mid-field.  His opening carry of the half had gone 79 yards for a touchdown.

In doing so, Pendleton finished the night with four carries for 160 yards rushing and a whopping 40 yard per carry average.  That average bested the old record held by class of '95 All-State RB Deke Cooper.  Cooper had carried 8 times for 176 yards including a 70 yard TD against Mt. Vernon--an average of 22.0 yards per carry.  Pendleton broke the record by nearly doubling it!

K Kyle Horstman closed out the scoring by converting the first field goal of his North career.  He split the uprights with a 27 yarder as time waned in the third quarter.

In all, North made a statement on Friday night.  Whether or not the 2007 Colonels are up to the school's normal standards, the Huskies beat a perennial powerhouse by five touchdowns.  The Huskies were expected to beat Bosse in week one and did so convincingly.  In the Jasper scrimmage, North managed 11 touchdowns to the Wildcats' zero.

The statement made by North was that any City Titles have to come through "North" Stadium.  The new goal post pads declare that both end zones belong to the North Huskies and the scoreboard, thus far, justifies that claim.  With Central, Reitz, and Mater Dei all playing as "Visitors" on First Avenue this season, North is rapidly gaining city-wide awareness as a contender for the crown.

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