Sonoraville soars over Rebels
The Sonoraville Phoenix played host to the Haralson County Rebels on Friday night, and the Phoenix won the game in blowout fashion, 44-20, thanks to an offensive explosion in the first half.
With the victory, the Phoenix improved their overall record to 5-2 on the season and their Region 6-AAA South record to 2-0. With the loss, Haralson County fell to 1-5 on the year and 0-2 in subregion play.
Sonoraville’s offense started clicking on all cylinders early as running back Tristan Key opened the scoring with a nine-yard touchdown run on the Phoenix’s first drive of the game.
The Phoenix scored again about two and a half minutes later as quarterback Patrick Moore kept the ball and took off for an explosive 49-yard rushing touchdown. Sonoraville also added a safety near the end of the quarter, when a bad snap on a punt went over the Haralson County punter’s head and into the end zone. Instead of risking a Sonoraville defender recovering it, the punter booted the ball through the back of the end zone for a safety.
Sonoraville got it back after the safety and scored on one play – a 29-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Camron Keith. Haralson County answered back seconds later with an 80-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Luke Cash to running back Treylon Sheppard. The Rebels missed the ensuing extra point, and Sonoraville ended the quarter with a 23-6 lead.
Sonoraville came out in the second quarter and scored three more times. First, Moore kept it himself and ran the ball 12 yards for a score. He then tossed a five-yard touchdown pass to Bryce Waters. The final score by Sonoraville was nothing short of spectacular as Key bounced it outside and sprinted 15 yards for a touchdown that included hurdling over a man at the goal line. The Phoenix defense stood strong in the second quarter and were pretty solid all game as they sacked the opposing quarterback three times and had multiple tackles for loss. They shutout the Rebels in the quarter and took a 44-6 lead going into halftime.
Sonoraville didn’t score in the second half, but a lot of that was due to them putting in their backups. Haralson managed 14 points in the half – one on an 11-yard touchdown run by Sheppard and the other on a 17-yard touchdown run by backup quarterback Nick Vaughn.
One guy who had an exceptional game was Sonoraville kicker Kevin Villatoro. He made all of his extra points, and all but one of his kickoffs were touchbacks. Moore also had a big night as he went 10-of-14 passing for 84 yards and added 86 yards on the ground and accounted for four touchdowns. Cash led the Rebels offensively as he was 4-for-7 passing for 127 yards and a score.
Sonoraville coach Jim Kremer talked about his team’s big victory.
“I was concerned going into this week,” said Kremer. “We had fall break. But the team did a good job of getting here on time. We had great practices in the mornings, so everything was set up fine. But you always get concerned about a letdown. But our kids came out here ready to play. We executed well on both sides, and we got to play a lot of kids tonight though not everybody. We had a JV game as well yesterday, so pretty much everybody on our team the last few days have gotten to play. That’s very important in growing our program and continuing to go in the right direction.”
Sonoraville does not have much time to celebrate their win as they travel to Adairsville next week in a game which will have a huge say in the subregion.