Northern Durham Clobbers Gryphons

A once proud football program who has not won in over a year on a football field will ride back to Durham tonight no longer a losing program. Northern Durham dominates Rocky Mount 39-14.

The Gryphons took the opening kickoff and were sailing down the field until a helmet tackle on the ball caused a Gryphon fumble and Northern preceded to march down the field running and passing to take a 7-0 lead.

Rocky Mount responded with their best drive of the night to tie the game on a 22 yard pass from Tevin Taylor to Damien Srtickland. Fernando Alfaro extra point tied the score with 3.24 to play in the first quarter. That is as close as Rocky Mount would come to see the lead. Northern Scored again before the end of the quarter and added one more score in the second to lead 20-7 at the half

Like last week against Bertie the Knights dominated the first half but instead of 13-0 Rocky Mount they trailed by 13. Rocky Mount came out of the third quarter and on their first drive drove the field and it was capped off by a 14 yard td run by Rodquez Greene to make it 20-14.

In every game there is a turning point and tonight moving down field and under extreme pressure looking as if they might take the lead Rocky Mount threw away a ball when it looked as if the quarter back might be sacked but instead the ball was intercepted and returned 52 yard for a Northern touchdown.

Still twice more Rocky Mount has a first down at the Northern 21 and again a first down at the 18 but failed to score. Northern Durham smelling victory took advantage of four Gryphon interceptions two of them in the fourth quarter and Northern Durham looking like Northern Durham of the past whips the Gryphons 39-14.

The news is much better in soccer as Rocky Mount took on Jacksonville the team that knocked them out of the third round of the playoffs last year and played the Cardinals straight up and to 0-0 tie. Coach Drew Nix played a defensive game keeping more people on defense to hold down the powerful Jacksonville team and it worked shutting out the Cardinals. The sacrifice you make with more on defense is you get very few offensive chances. All in all Gryphon soccer plays one of the big boys in North Carolina High School soccer to a draw.