“It’s amazing,” Smith said of the victory. “It’s great for the community.”
On Tuesday, a Northwestern elementary school bus that had 52 students and one driver aboard overturned in a crash involving an oncoming vehicle, leaving one student dead and dozens of others injured.
“Every day, it was on our minds,” said Warriors football coach Lance Lambert. “This was a game that we weren’t only playing for ourselves – it was much bigger than us. To be able to pull off a win for the community during this time, I think it’s a win for Northwestern overall, not just our football team.”
With about 30 seconds remaining in the first half, Smith found Moore for a 29-yard TD pass to give the Warriors a 7-0 halftime lead.
Northwestern received the ball to open the second half, scoring on a 35-yard TD pass from Smith to senior Jacob Shaffer to give the Warriors a 14-0 lead.
On the ensuing kickoff, Northwestern recovered an onside kick to get the ball back near midfield. Two plays later, Smith hit junior Jaycob Moore on a 60-yard TD pass to extend their lead to 21-0.
The back-to-back TDs swung the momentum the Warriors way and they were able to keep it the rest of the game.
“That’s what we preach to these guys,” Lambert said. “We want a score-stop-score. Oftentimes that’s talked about in basketball, but in football it’s huge. We’ve got guys on the edge that can make huge plays for us.”
Warriors junior Preston Allen scored on a 49-yard TD run to make it 27-0.
After an interception by junior Andrue Malone, Smith hit Malone on an 8-yard TD pass to make it 34-0.
“(Smith) got a lot of pressure in his face tonight, but he’s a tough kid, stays in there and stays composed,” Lambert said. “He’s way more mature than his years. We’re extremely happy with him.”
Defensively, the Warriors (1-1) held Greenon to 116 yards of total offense and caused four turnovers.
The Knights (0-2) drove the ball deep into Northwestern territory late in the second quarter but were held on fourth down. The Warriors followed with a TD and took control of the game early in the third quarter.
“It’s tough,” said Greenon coach Josh Wooten. “I’m not going to make excuses. We’ve got to get better and we’re going to do that. We’re going to continue to coach our kids – that’s what we talked to them about in the locker room. We’ve got a lot of new guys on both sides of the ball. We knew we were going to be young and inexperienced. We’ll continue to coach our kids and get better each week. That’s all you can do.”
The Knights face a tough stretch over the next three weeks against Ohio Heritage Conference North Division opponents. Greenon travels to Mechanicsburg next week, hosts Northeastern in Week 4 and travels to Fairbanks in Week 5.
“We’ve got our work cut out against some great programs,” Wooten said. “We’re going to continue to coach our kids. That’s all we can do.”
Lambert was pleased with his team’s ability to handle adversity this week.
“We preach that every single day,” Lambert said. “These kids have faced so much adversity with changing practice schedules, obviously a huge loss and trying to emotionally prepare for a football game. They came out and did a great job doing it. They preserved through everything.”
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