North Side won 23-20 at South Side on Friday night.
The Indians picked up an important Region 6-4A victory.
The Commissioners’ Cup returned to their trophy case.
But the Indians had to fight hard to gain all of that because they needed a 14-point second half comeback to pick up the win.
“I’m so happy right now. I love all of y’all,” said Indians head coach Woodrow Lowe Jr. when he gathered the team together for the postgame speech on the field. “Y’all didn’t quit, and I thank you for that.”
Lowe wasn’t smiling much in the first half.
The Indians (4-4 overall, 2-1 Region 6-4A) lost four turnovers in the first two quarters, and the Hawks (2-6, 0-3) had one of those halves where it looked for a while as if they could do nothing wrong.
Chuck Stokes, running from the quarterback position for much of the night, gashed the Indians’ defense consistently in the early going.
North Side actually scored first, returning the opening kick for a touchdown.
But South Side responded by holding the Indians scoreless for the remainder of the half and scoring 20 points themselves.
“We showed them multiple fronts on defense and just tried different things that we thought would work on their personnel,” said South Side coach Lester Narcisse.
Stokes ran for both Hawk touchdowns, finishing the night with 174 yards and the two touchdowns on 24 carries.
North Side’s Kylan Roberson returned the opening kick for a touchdown to put the Indians up first.
Javonte Smith, the sophomore from North Side who received a scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee this past week, caught a pass for the second touchdown to cut the score to 20-14 after a two-point conversion.
The Indians took the lead in the first minute of the fourth quarter when Cortez Manley walked in from a yard out.
North Side tried to go up by two scores, but the Hawks’ defense held on the goal line – their second such stand of the night. But an errant snap in shot gun in the end zone went over the quarterback’s head and out of the back of the end zone for a safety for the final 23-20 score.
South Side was driving with a chance to tie or take the lead in the closing minutes but got stopped after getting into a 4th-down-and-27 situation. Stokes got a long run on the play but not enough or the first down with a little more than two minutes remaining and no timeouts remaining.
Both teams get their bye next week before wrapping up the season with two straight region games.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
