A&R effort enters coach's doghouse
Elliott Craig ran down the sideline early in the first quarter Friday night after Derick Higgins broke a big run against AlWood-ROWVA.
“All night! Just like that!” the North Fulton coach preached to his team. “Keep it coming like that!”
Higgins and the Wildcats followed their coach’s orders, dismantling the Bulldogs 41-0 on a drizzly evening in Cuba to make North Fulton (5-3, 2-3 WPT-Northwest) playoff-eligible.
The win was the second straight for North Fulton, which has outscored its opponents 102-12 the last two weeks.
Higgins ran 203 yards on just 10 carries and had touchdown runs of 46 and 64 yards, with the first coming on the second play from scrimmage 46 seconds into the game.
“I could’ve drove a semi through that hole,” said Higgins, who rushed for more yards than AlWood-ROWVA totaled in the game (182).
The loss ended the Bulldogs’ playoff hopes. A&R (3-5, 1-5) ended the first half with 90 yards and one first down on 21 plays.
“If this is a playoff game for us, which it really was, then obviously we didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs,” Bulldogs coach Taul Noard said. “We didn’t show up. We didn’t give them a good look even. This wouldn’t have been a good scrimmage for them.”
It looked more like a flag football game in the first half for North Fulton, which ran 21 times for 347 yards in the first half. All of the Wildcats’ scores came from at least 21 yards out.
“Our line was getting off the ball very well and blocking upfield,” said fullback Jimmy Adams, who carried 10 times for 138 yards and had TD runs of 22 and 26 yards. “They kept blocking backers and that made it easy for us.”
North Fulton led 34-0 at halftime and forced a running clock for the remainder of the game with 6:29 left in the third quarter when Johnny Davis ran in from 26 yards.
A&R’s best scoring chance came when it trailed 14-0 in the first quarter. A 61-yard pass play from Kenny Fogerty to Cameron Teel helped the Dogs move to the North Fulton 1-yard line. But Fogerty fumbled the snap and Joel Hisey recovered just outside the Cats’ goal line.