GALION — Highland scored on its first five possessions, and seven of its first eight, in cruising past Northmor by a 49-6 count Friday night.
After falling behind 21-0, the Knights found a little bit of offense. Jordan Wiseman hit Garrett Gillispie with passes of 18 and 10 yards. The senior quarterback then handed off to Conan Becker, who darted 47 yards for the score, making it 21-6 with 11 minutes remaining in the first half.
But that’s the only time the Knights would get into the endzone.
“They beat us out of the gate,” Northmor coach B.J. Trainer said. “They’re a good football team. They created a lot of problems defensively. Their defensive line did a good job of disrupting what we tried to do offensively.”
See more photos from Friday’s game in our online gallery.
Relying on a powerful ground game that consistently gained yards, the Scots took the opening kickoff and drove down the field in 10 plays, nine being runs. Josh Cantrell finished the drive with a 15-yard scoring run and Satchel Denton added the first of seven successful point-after kicks to stake his team to a 7-0 lead.
Jared Limings started Highland’s second drive with a 45-yard run and then added carries of eight, 12, nine and nine yards, with the last one ending up in the end zone.
On it’s third drive, Limings got the ball back into the end zone, on the first play of the second quarter, with a 15-yard scamper.
“We challenged them on Monday that we were going to try to control the line on both sides and I think we did,” said Scot coach Chad Carpenter.
After Northmor’s touchdown, Limings orchestrated another drive. His 9-yard touchdown run made it 28-6.
Liming’s fourth score of the day capped off a 76-yard drive. His 10-yard run 35-6 at the half.
The Scots scored twice in the second half, on a 44-yard pass play from Max Schreiber to Javier Vasquez and a 10-yard run by Cam Catrone.
With the win, Highland improved to 4-0 in the league and 4-3 overall after dropping its first three contests of the season. Carpenter is hoping his team can continue to pick up wins as the Blue Division schedule continues.
Northmor is still looking for its first win, and Trainer had a simple answer for how his team will recover from the loss.
“That’s one you just flush,” he said. “We just have to look forward at next week’s game and move forward.”
Conan Becker returns a kick for Northmor on Friday.
