North Side came into Friday night’s game against R. L. Paschal at Farrington Field looking to bounce back after a disappointing loss against Arlington Heights the week before.
The Paschal Panthers had an extra week to prepare for their matchup against the Steers, and they wanted to leave with a winning record after Friday night’s game. The Panthers delivered, coming out on top with a 45-20 victory.
Despite the loss, North Side head coach Michael Connelly said the Steers will keep fighting the rest of the season.
“It’s hard losing, but we played a really good football team, and we battled the entire football game,” Connelly said. “We really picked ourselves up because we faced a lot of adversity after last week, and we could have easily laid down and quit, and our kids did not.”
Friday night’s win was a tone-setting win for the Paschal Panthers. This is their first year in District 4 5A-D1.
“It felt good, it felt like we have momentum going into the next game and the game after that,” Paschal’s quarterback Jashaun Thomas said.
That momentum in this game started early in the first quarter when Chris Debenport scored the first touchdown of the night with 10:38 left in the first quarter. The Panthers scored a total of 24 unanswered points; 18 of those were scored in the first quarter.
“We needed to come out and block, run, play catch on the offense and defensively we needed to get off the field on third down,” Paschal head coach John Killough said. “I felt like we did it the first quarter for sure.”
North Side first got on the board with a touchdown just before half time. North Side seemed to be back in the game in the third quarter with quick action by some of the Steers.
“I think Trusten Holland had a great ball game, he played starting quarterback and he really sparked us intercepting that two point conversion and taking it back for us,” Connelly said.
With 9:55 remaining in the third quarter, North Side had narrowed Paschal’s lead. The score was 24-14.
But Paschal was determined to keep their lead. With 4:38 left in the third quarter, Marquez Dean scored a 47-yard rushing touchdown. The Panthers led 31-14.
The fourth quarter saw two more touchdowns for Paschal and one more touchdown for North Side. The final score was 45-20
Paschal will play South Hills Friday, September 27 at Clark Stadium.
North Side has a bye week next week, and then will face off against South Hills Thursday, October 3 at Farrington Field.
“We are pretty beat up right now, this is a very physical two game stretch for us playing Heights and Paschal so we’ve go to get healthy,” Connelly said. “We’ve got to focus on fundamentals this next week and South Hills is a good football team, so we’ve got to get prepared so we have a chance against them.”
