McDonough football’s comeback bid falls short
Butler tosses five TD passes in loss to Northern
Northern jumped out to a huge halftime lead and then hung on to defeat visiting Mc- Donough 43-33 on Friday night at Northern High School. in a Southern Maryland Athletic Conference nondivision con- test.
The Patriots (1-8 overall) leaped out to a 30-7 lead by the intermission, but McDonough rallied over the final 24 min- utes and drew to within 10 points.
“They have a really good running back and at first they surprised us with their running game, but we made an adjust- ment at half and kind of slowed them down a little bit,” Mc- Donough head coach Jonathan Briscoe said. “It’s kind of hard to come back when you spot a team 30 points in a half, [but] we got some points to get back in the game. I love the way they fought.”
Northern’s Xavier Davis rushed for 227 yards and two touchdowns, while quarterback Gunnar Christianson completed 11 of 13 passes for 170 yards and three scores.
Northern was unable to be reached for comment. The Patriots wrap up the regular season at North Point at 7 p.m. Friday. The Eagles defeated Huntingtown, 35-7, in Week 9.
The Rams (2-7) switched to quarterback Brant Butler on their third possession and the pivot completed 19 of 30 passes for 353 yards and five touchdowns. He also added 55 yards on the ground.
“He kind of lit it up,” Briscoe said.
Hezikiah Hawkins had five catches for 131 yards and a score and Dervonn Holton also had five catches for 76 yards and three touchdowns. Demar- co Davis had six receptions for 80 yards and Ricardo Olivia added three grabs for 66 yards and a score.
Running back Messiah Original had 16 carries for 77 yards.
Defensively, Chris Proctor had a team-high 12 tackles and recovered a fumble while Jor- dan Bankett added 10 tackles. Jaelyn McDuffie added nine tackles and Holton finished with five tackles and an inter- ception.
“[In the second half] our goal was to get some scores and hold them, and from there we just kept fighting,” Briscoe said. “With the predicament that we were in we couldn’t really run the ball, but our passing game just caught fire. I can’t be mad at the way we fought.”
McDonough will host La Plata at 7 p.m. Friday. The Warriors lost to Lackey in Week 9, 42-6.
“If we can keep our offense moving in the right direction and step up our running game we’ll be solid,” Briscoe said. “And I think we can do that. But we have to stop people; we have to play better defense if we want to stop people.”