WILLIAMSTON — Fresh off a 40-8 blowout of their cross-county rival, the Southside Seahawks came out energized in Friday night’s match up with neighboring Riverside. But despite a slow start, Asim McGill’s Knights grinded out four quarters of gritty football in The Swamp to outlast the Seahawks, 34-22.

“I felt like we answered the physical call against them,” said Southside head coach Jeff Carrow. “We knew they were going to be athletic, so we wanted to come out there and match that physicality and I think we did that. We had a great first half, but a few mental errors throughout the whole ballgame.”

The first of a handful of mental errors occurred on the second play of the contest, as Riverside’s Malik Smith picked up a fumble and returned it 35 yards for a touchdown.

The Seahawks’ defense was able to keep the Knights out of the red zone for the remainder of the quarter, giving the offense great field position. And on the first play of the second quarter, junior Lawrence Brown plowed his way through the defensive line and into the end zone.

The score ignited the Seahawks sideline and fans. On the following Southside possession, elusive running back Donshae Miller, who missed the first few games of the season, was back in full form, side-stepping his way through the front seven to the goal line.

“Donshae is just another option,” Carrow said. “It just adds more depth to the backfield. He’s a smaller guy, but brings a lot of pop when he’s running, so I can get him to go north and south with it. He’s fast enough to get on the edge to.”

In the red zone, again, Carrow relied on Brown, his go-to short-yardage back, to run straight up the gut of the defense. After shaking off a few blockers, Brown carried two linebackers across the goal line.

Knights quarterback Clay Wagner led his team up the field with three minutes to go in the half and tacked on another seven points, the game tied at 14 heading into the break.

“Coach McGill made the adjustments at halftime,” Carrow said. “We played solid defense all the way through, but he ran the quarterback iso a little bit better. He made adjustments and the credit goes to him.”

The Knights defense contained the Southside running game, while the offense began to find holes in the opposition’s formation.

In the third quarter, the Knights tacked on 14 points — one score on a 26-yard touchdown pass from Wagner to Ziree Rogers and the other on a run from Smith. In the fourth, Wagner found receiver Jeremiah Wilson on a jump ball in the back of the end zone to bring the score to 34-14 with eight minutes to go, seemingly ending the chances at a Hawk comeback.

For Southside, Miller finished with 90 yards on 16 carries and was held to just three yards rushing in the second half. Wagner finished the day 9-for-15 with 137-yards passing.

Southside will face Spring Creek next week in Seven Springs, while Riverside heads to Beaufort to take on East Carteret.