PINETOWN — What began as a beautiful sunny day on the Northside football field Wednesday afternoon, it was cut short due to lightning later in the evening. The Panthers hosted Southside, Bertie, Washington County, Pamlico County and Bear Grass Charter School.

NORTHSIDE

The hosting Panthers raised some eyebrows on Wednesday from visiting coaches and players. Northside showcased a successful running attack with a few different backs. James Gorham, Omari Crandell and Samuel Holland burst into open field on more than one occasion on Wednesday night, each scoring at least once. The passing game really helped balance the offense.

With a good mix of run, pass and play-action, senior quarterback Carter Boyd was able to deliver passes to the outside on wide receiver screens just as well as downfield. Tyler Turner had a few catches on the day, as well as Tyler Modlin and Payton Woolard. Modlin and Woolard both scored receiving touchdowns on the evening. The only downfall to the Panthers’ afternoon was putting the ball on the turf a few more times than head coach Keith Boyd would have liked.

Defensively, Northside looked relatively sound. They kept Bear Grass and Bertie out of the end zone on each of their 10-play drives, and caused a turnover inside their 10-yard line to keep the Bears out of the end zone. Against Southside, the Panthers scored three times, once through the air and twice on the ground.

Fatigue started to set in, but Keith Boyd was looking to test their conditioning. He did just that by making the Panthers play in consecutive series twice on the afternoon.

“I was very pleased,” Boyd said. “We went out against 2-A school Bertie and did pretty well, held our own, played Bear Grass pretty well, got a break and had a great offensive possession against Southside.”

Boyd mentioned his team battling fatigue, but alluded to how well the running backs looked on Wednesday.

“James (Gorham) is going to stretch us a little bit, he’s got some speed on that jet, he’s shifty,” Boyd said. “We’re able to throw it on the edge, we cleaned up midline and outside veer up today, everything looked a little better than last time. If we continue to do that, we’ll be OK.”

 

SOUTHSIDE
The Seahawks didn’t look to shabby either in their first bit of action against different opponents. Southside has a slew of different running backs that are able to do different things in the wing-T look. Davion Carter rumbled in for a touchdown against Bear Grass after Jamari Nelson got the ball inside the five-yard line on an edge run, plus half the distance for a horse-collar penalty. Kenjray Coffield waltzed into the end zone against Pamlico County after a solid drive down the field, and Nelson got into the end zone on an edge run against Northside. Aeron Wright also had a rushing touchdown against the Panthers. Quarterback Hundley Stallings showcased his arm during the scrimmage, but couldn’t quite connect on the deep ball. He did complete some passes to Daveion McCraw and Ty’Nahj Smith on the afternoon.

 

“I thought Hundley (Stallings) played well,” head coach Jeff Carrow said. “He’s got to hit a better deep ball. He knows that, I’ve been preaching that since spring. He can put it on a dime on short routes but he’s got to get better touch on the deep ball. There’s some pass protection things we have to fix and that’s on me, but all in all I thought we blocked well and executed on the short routes.”

Defensively, the Seahawks played relatively well. Outside of a few things, coach Carrow said he was happy with his team’s performance.

“We started out a little slow, we woke up fairly quickly though. The more we played today the better we looked today,” Carrow said. “Overall I’m very pleased. Defensively, we got better after the first few snaps. Caused a couple of turnovers. Overall conditioning wise, coaching-wise, I’m very, very pleased.”

The only issue on this Seahawks team could be depth up front. They have a plethora of skill position players that can come out of the backfield on any given play, but the guys up front are going to need some breathers, especially with most of them playing both sides of the football.

Southside’s next and last scrimmage before the regular season will be Friday at Washington High School. It is set to begin at 6 p.m.