High School Football: Northeastern jets past Northwestern

After his team dropped its rivalry game with Kenton Ridge in the season opener, Northeastern coach Tim Houseman chose to accentuate the positive and said confidently, “We know we’re a good team.”

The Jets will have eight more weeks to validate their coach’s assessment, but they took a step in the right direction with an overpowering 35-0 win over visiting Northwestern on Friday.

Junior quarterback Dylan Hand had four touchdown tosses — two to senior Casey Hayes — and finished unofficially 16-for-23 passing for 189 yards with two interceptions.

Northeastern edge rusher Wes Roberts led a sack-happy defense, once tossing quarterback Eli Berner for a 10-yard loss and stuffing running back Zack Leist five yards behind the line.

Tanner Stratton, Lane McKinney and Zach Taylor also tallied sacks as the Warriors were limited to 44 total yards on 53 plays.

The Jets scored 21 points in the opening half, striking first with a 30-yard pass from Hand to Hayes.

An interception by Hand gave the Jets prime field position at the 10-yard line, and they cashed in when Hayes hauled in a 7-yard TD pass.

After taking over again in Warrior territory, the Jets stormed across the goal line when Hand connected with Stratton for an 11-yard score.

Roberts scored on the biggest gain of the game, a 69-yard TD catch late in the third quarter.

The Jets (1-1) were coming off a 22-20 loss to Kenton Ridge, having been stopped late in the fourth quarter on a potential game-tying two-point conversion. They’ve already reached half of their win total from last year.

The Warriors (0-2), who lost to Southeastern in their opener, couldn’t muster much. Berner accounted for 237 total yards (146 passing, 91 rushing) in Week 1 but was stymied all night.

Among the few highlights for the Warriors were a pair of interceptions by junior Liam Burns, though he was ejected on the last play of the first half when both teams were penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Northwestern reached the Northeastern 6 late in the second quarter but fumbled a first-down snap, which was recovered by sophomore defensive tackle Nate Sudhoff.

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