Northside’s bid to win a share of the Coastal Plains Conference championship fell short on Friday as the Panthers lost 27-14 to conference leaders Lejeune.
Down 20-2 at halftime, the Panthers (6-5, 3-2) outscored the Devilpups (10-1, 5-0) 12-7 in the second half but it was not enough.
“Lejeune is pretty good, they’re ranked 10th in the state for a reason,” Northside coach Keith Boyd said. “It was a good football game, but they have a couple of really good players and they were able to capitalize on a few mistakes we made.”
Northside took a 2-0 lead in the first as a result of a safety. The Panthers drove down to the Lejeune 1-yard line, where their drive stalled out. However, the defense came up with a big rush to pickup two points.
“We had a long drive and we stalled, but on the very next play we got the safety,” Boyd said.
The Devilpups owned the rest of the first half as they were able to score 20 unanswered points to go into the break up 20-2.
“We got some stops, but they had some big plays,” Boyd said. “They didn’t come out and maul us, but they busted a few plays that were able to put them over the edge.”
In the second half Northside got its running game back on track as Dajuan Jones rushed for touchdown runs of 40 and 10 yards.
“Dajuan ran hard tonight, he probably had about 25 to 30 carries,” Boyd said. “He’s our fullback and he was able to have a big night.”

Riverside 49, South Creek 14
Riverside closed out the regular season with a 49-14 win over rival South Creek on Friday.
Knights running back Jeremiah Wilson galloped for 217 yards and three touchdowns on only nine carries, while completing two passes for 33 yards and a touchdown.
Ryan Wagner went 7-11 for 55 yards and a score, while Daniel Everett caught three passes for 47 yards and a touchdown.
The win ups the Knights record to 7-3 (4-1), while South Creek dropped to 1-10 (0-5).