By CRAIG ADKINS
For The Reporter
Just as it is every third Friday in August, it was a perfect night for high school football in the state of Indiana.
The newly laid turf at Noblesville’s Hare Chevrolet Field was ready for its first game action and so were the host Millers and the visiting Lawrence North Wildcats. Lawrence North took control in the second half to beat Noblesville 42-16.
It took about half of the first quarter for the teams to figure out what they would be able to do against the other. After that, it didn’t take long until the zeroes were off of the scoreboard.
Lawrence North started off their first offensive possession in good field position, only having to travel 52 yards in 10 plays, capping off the scoring driving with a Trevon Bonds one-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 Wildcats lead with 5:45 left in the first.
The Millers wasted no time at all on the ensuing possession. Just three plays and 85 yards later, Noblesville scored its first touchdown of the 2017 season with a 70-yard run by senior tailback Christian Collier, evening the score at 7-7.
The visiting Wildcats turned the ball over on downs on two drives in the second quarter, while trading punts with Noblesville, before junior Miller placekicker Jack Knight nailed a 34-yard field goal as time expired in the first half, giving the host Millers a 10-7 lead at halftime.
In the second half, the tide turned in an ugly way for Noblesville in its season opener.
The Wildcats received the third quarter kickoff and scored right away. Their first series of the third with a seven-play, 80-yard scoring drive, taking the lead for good on a Derin McCulley bootleg to the right, where he found the front corner of the end zone to give LN a 14-10 lead that they would not give up.
Following a Miller punt, Trevon Bonds scored his second TD of the night, this time on a 17-yard pass from McCulley to jump the Wildcats’ lead to double-digits at 21-10.
Lawrence North scored after another Noblesville punt, but this time it was James Nobles darting through the Miller D-line, finding his way to the end zone 78 yards later. That pushed it to 28-10 after three.
The Noblesville defense just couldn’t find an answer for the rushing attack of Lawrence North, no matter which tailback LN put out there.
“Defensively, we didn’t compete hard enough and that’s the bottom line,” said Noblesville head coach Jason Simmons following the Millers’ season-opening loss.
“We didn’t compete as well as we needed to, to have a chance and that’s disappointing,” Simmons continued on his team’s performance.
The Wildcats didn’t let their foot off the accelerator. Just into the fourth quarter, Trevon Bonds scored his third TD of the night, second on the ground, making it a 35-10 game.
A few minutes later, Noblesville’s Ryan Barnes lined up as the quarterback and rushed in from two yards out for his first score of the season and the second of the night for the hosts. Junior quarterback Grant Gremel’s two-point conversion pass was incomplete to Zach Gruver, leaving the Millers trailing 35-16.
Ko’Keyto Stewart was one of eight different ball carriers on the night and marched his way to a nine-yard TD to make up the final tally of 42-16.
The bottom line was that the Lawrence North Wildcats executed extremely well in running the ball. They did so with 50 carries for 395 rushing yards (7.9 average), not to mention the 19 rushing first downs they accumulated. LN didn’t pass much, because they didn’t need to pass the ball. McCulley still completed 4-of-6 for 57 yards and a TD.
Noblesville saw lot of personnel hit the field and with a meeting at defending 6A state champion Carmel next Friday, it’ll be an interesting week of practice leading up to that battle with the Greyhounds.
“We played a lot of guys on the defensive line tonight,” said Simmons. “We’re gonna turn on the film and learn a lot about those guys and we’re gonna find out who are those Friday night guys and we’re gonna figure out the guys who aren’t quite ready to do that.”
While the Millers (0-1) head to Carmel (0-1) to see who will grab their first win of 2017, Lawrence North (1-0) will host Brownsburg (1-0), who dominated Bloomington North at home, 51-14.
Noblesville’s Christian Collier runs into the end zone to score a first-quarter touchdown. (Kent Graham)
Eddie Dziennik (10), Wyatt Blades (13) and Jazz Terrell (8) make a defensive play for Noblesville.