CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Northwest football hosted Kenwood Friday for its 50th homecoming anniversary. It was a back-and-forth battle for the majority of the game, but the Knight run game proved to be too much for the Vikings to handle.
With 10 minutes remaining in the contest, Kenwood running back Trelon Gadson broke loose for an 81-yard rushing touchdown, delivering the final blow in the Knights 30-17 victory.
Kenwood football coach Les Greer described how Gadson has become such an important piece of the team’s offense in 2019.
“He’s a great athlete and runs the ball hard,” Greer said. “He’s also really explosive. Of course everyone knows about Moody (Kavarius), but Trelon is just as good. He’s a great kid and leader of our team. He plays almost every snap both ways. He’s just a good, tough, smart football player that we have to get the ball to. He’s definitely one of the features of our offense.”
After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time this season, Northwest football coach Neil Furnish will look to rally his troops in short order.
“It’s about how you’re going to respond come Monday,” Furnish said. “This is a big loss to a cross-town rival that hurts. They outplayed us no question about it. We just made way too many mistakes. Their offense pushed us defensively and we weren’t able to make them go three and out and give ourselves a chance.”
Northwest jumped out in front on its opening drive and led 7-0 on a two-yard touchdown run by Laqualin Nicholson. Viking quarterback Robert Baker helped set up the first score of the game after his two runs of 15 plus yards got the Northwest offense deep into Knight territory.
Furnish discussed Baker’s solid performance and how the senior has barely even scratched the surface of his immense potential.
“There’s no doubt about it that Robert Baker is a special talent,” Furnish said. “I felt like going forward with our program and our team, that in order to have shots against very athletic groups that we’re playing now, that we have to add a little bit of a dynamic with a dual-threat kid back there and Robert serves that purpose for us.”
The Knight offense struggled to find its rhythm out of the gate as Kenwood trailed 7-0 through one quarter of play. Greer said the reason behind his group’s lack of execution early on was simple.
“Penalties,” Greer said. “We were getting the ball up and down the field and then we would have a holding penalty or false start. We settled in once we started running the ball and then we were fine.”
Kenwood rattled off 14 unanswered points to start the second quarter with both touchdowns coming off the arm of Jaylen Washington.
The Knight quarterback first found Makhai Loving for a 17-yard score as the play-action pass play worked to perfection.
Midway through the second quarter, the Viking defense appeared to have forced and recovered a Knight fumble. However, the runner was ruled down by contact and Kenwood found pay dirt on the very same drive. Furnish said his team needs to do a better job of putting similar instances behind them and focus their attention on the next play at hand.
“He was down,” Furnish said. “I saw it too. It’s just one of those things where you have to face it. I keep telling our guys when you think it’s a bad play you just have to play the next play and bring it. It’s never perfect, but he was down and it was the right call.”
Later in the quarter, the Knights converted on fourth-and-15 as Washington found his man Anthony Smith over the middle of the field for six points and the lead.
“That’s a base play we run just four verts,” Greer said of the play call. “He (Washington) has a certain read, he read it and put the ball where he was supposed to put it. Anthony Smith made a good catch. He’s a big target and we expect him to execute those plays when we call them and they did a great job of doing that.”
With two minutes left to play in the first half, Baker tied the score at 14 on a 14-yard rushing touchdown.
The touchdown got the Viking crowd back into the game, until Gadson scored from 21-yards out right before the first half came to a close. After the successful two-point conversion, Kenwood took a 22-14 lead into the break, taking the wind out of Northwest’s sails in the process.
“It was tough,” Furnish said. “You feel like you have your guys in the right position and sometimes players just make plays. We had a couple guys around the ball and didn’t make the play and they did. It is what it is.”
Kenwood’s Kavarius Moody returned to the field after missing last week’s game with an ankle injury. Northwest did a solid job of containing the explosive wide out by not allowing him to use his big-play ability.
“I think he’s 100 percent,” Greer said of Moody’s health. “It was more of an execution thing. There were a couple balls tonight that he usually catches and he’ll tell you the same thing. He’s fine and he’ll be okay next week. He told me at halftime, ‘I got you coach’ and I said ‘Yeah I know buddy’. He’s just got to keep working.”
After a scoreless third quarter, the Northwest kicker connected on a 28-yard field goal to cut the Knight lead to 22-17 with 11 minutes left to play. This would be as close as the Vikings would get before Gadson gashed Northwest’s defense for the final score of the game.
Northwest (3-2, 1-1) heads to Spring Hill as the Vikings face off against Summit Friday, Sept. 27.
Kenwood (2-3, 2-0) travels to take on Henry County Friday, Sept. 27.