An hour-and-10-minute lightning delay at the start of Friday night’s season opener only seemed to postpone the inevitable.
Columbus North didn’t start exceptionally fast, but when it got rolling, it began lighting up the scoreboard on its way to a 64-7 win against Franklin.
“I’m proud of our kids weathering the storm, literally, and just showing good maturity,” North coach Tim Bless said. “Sitting in the locker room for that amount of time, yet from the opening whistle, we came out and played very good football.”
The Bull Dogs drove into the red zone on their first offensive series, but had to settle for a 32-yard field goal by Spencer Rivera. Then on their second possession, Trenton Kelley found Giovanni Alejandro wide open behind the Franklin defense for a 59-yard touchdown and a 10-0 lead. North added to its lead when Kelley snuck it in from the 2.
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The Grizzly Cubs drove to the Bull Dogs 11 on their next series, but Spencer Downhour missed a 28-yard field goal. But Franklin got the ball back and needed only three plays to drive 57 yards. A 42-yard run by quarterback Drew Byerly set up a 15-yard touchdown pass from Byerly to Peyton Ruble on the first play of the second quarter to cut the lead to 17-7.
The rest of the second quarter belonged to North. Kelley hit Preston Terrell for an 11-yard score, and third-string running back Daveed Jolley scored on runs of 10 and 5 yards after short fields set up by a fumble and a blocked punt.
The Grizzly Cubs did recover two fumbles of their own in the second quarter, but were unable to capitalize.
The Bull Dogs erased any doubt by scoring touchdowns the first three times they had the ball in the third quarter. Kelley and Alejandro connected for the second time for a 22-yard score. Starting running back Michael Johnson ran five yards for a score, and backup Blake Huffman went in from the 14 for a 58-7 lead. A fourth running back, Royce Lofton added a 2-yard run in the fourth quarter.
“I thought we came out with great energy tonight, and we played through the weather adversity,” Kelley said. “We had pretty good senior leadership, and I thought we came out and played really well.”
Kelley, playing his first game since suffering a ruptured spleen on the opening drive of last year’s sectional final loss at Center Grove, completed 8 of 15 passes for 227 yards and three touchdowns. Johnson carried 23 times for 152 yards, and Huffman added 124 yards on 11 carries.
Alejandro caught two passes for 81 yards. Terrell added four catches for 77 yards.
“We’re far from a finished product, but I think all three phases produced for us,” Bless said. “There were some things defensively where we have to clean up some alignments and clean up some tackling. Offensively, we had too many unforced errors with some silly penalties, as far as alignments, but we’ll get that cleaned up. Special teams made some plays, but then also the ball was on the ground, and we missed some PATs, so we have plenty to work on heading into Week 2.”
