Heading into its matchup with Tarboro, Washington knew Vikings running back Todd Gurley would be hard to stop. What the Pam Pack also found out in its 53-14 loss is that the rest of the Tarboro backs are pretty good too.
The Vikings (1-1), the two-time defending NCHSAA 2A state champions, unleashed a wicked rushing attack that accumulated 455 yards and eight touchdowns to win their first game of the season on Thursday. The win came only two days after Nash Central snapped the Vikings’ 23-game winning streak on Monday.
With the threat of Hurricane Irene looming, the two teams moved up their contest from Friday to Thursday night.
Washington opened up the game with a stop on defense, but then quarterback Jimmy Williams threw an interception on the team’s first possession, which led to a Gurley 12-yard TD run at the 7:29 mark.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Pack’s Keane Graham fumbled despite not being touched by a Tarboro defender. That turnover led to a Gurley 7-yard scoring scamper and from there the rout was on.
The Vikings would score on their next four possessions to take a 41-0 lead into halftime.
“When you have four or five turnovers, especially at your own end of the field, you’re not asking for anything good,” Washington head coach Sport Sawyer said. “Turnovers killed us tonight.”
So did the Tarboro run game as Gurley racked up two TDs, while Ricky Dozier scored on runs of three and 33 yards. Larry Jones added a 45-yard score, Tim Suggs recorded an 8-yard TD run and Quentin Robinson had a 35-yard touchdown run to go along with his 7-yard TD run.
“Gurley’s a very good athlete, and they have some other athletes there that run the ball very hard,” Sawyer said. “When they wanted to pick up yards they ran it right at us and picked up yardage.”
The Pam Pack offense flickered from time to time but never really got off the ground. Washington fumbled a total of five times, losing two of them while Williams was intercepted twice.
“Mentally we did not execute on the offensive side,” Sawyer said. “The plays were there, we just did not execute.”
Williams led the team on two fourth-quarter scoring drives. The first one ended with a 15-yard TD pass to Graham, and the second one came when Williams connected with D.J. Bell for a nice looking 16-yard scoring pass.
The Pam Pack will look to get back on track next week when it plays at Northside.

Tarboro    13    28    6    8    —    53
Washington    0    0    0    0    —    14