N. Murray rolls, 35-7

Published 6:57 am Saturday, September 29, 2012

North Murray’s football team missed its opportunity to surprise the state with a win over ranked Cartersville last week.

The Mountaineers still have plenty of time to make an impression on the rest of Region 5-3A.

North Murray rolled to a 35-7 victory against Sonoraville on Friday at Calhoun, picking up their first win in region play under first-year coach David Gann.

Brady Swilling racked up 155 rushing yards and Jacob Mays and Christian Bukle each scored a pair of touchdowns to lead the Mountaineers (4-1, 1-1 Region 5-3A), who held a 28-0 halftime lead over the Phoenix (1-4, 0-2) and had 235 of their total 356 rushing yards in the first two quarters.

North Murray’s win came a week after losing 40-22 to Cartersville. At that time, Cartersville was the No. 8 team in both The Associated Press and Georgia High School Football Daily/Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Class 3A state polls; the Purple Hurricanes moved up to seventh this week and rolled to a 63-7 win at Coahulla Creek in another Region 5-3A matchup on Friday.

““It’s nice to see our kids bounce back and kind of respond after a loss last week,” Gann said. “They came out and played very well from start to finish, so I was very proud of them.”

The running game has done the job so far for the Mountaineers and that was the case again this week. Going into Friday’s matchup, the Mountaineers were averaging 35 points and 431.3 offensive yards (350.3 rushing) each game.

Sonoraville focused on the ground game as well Friday, but with much less success — Jackson Murray led the Phoenix with 46 yards on 10 carries.

Sonoraville’s score came with 3:24 left in the third quarter on a 13-yard pass from Tyler Harris to Chris Baker.

North Murray hosts Adairsville next week in another 5-3A matchup.

— Aaron Mann of the Calhoun Times  contributed to this report.

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