The football team came away with a strong victory over Druid Hills 26-14 in the team’s home opener on August 22.
Head coach Leroy Hood said that turnovers created by the defense were the game-changers in the win.
“The win feels good, but we made a lot of mistakes,” Hood said. “The defense played a tremendous game. We created four turnovers which is great because it’s hard for any team to win when you lose the turnover battle.”
Senior defensive back Kenari Tigner caught an interception in the first quarter to force the Knights’ first of many turnovers in the game and he said that the defense’s mentality started with that interception.
“Our momentum really started to go up from there,” Tigner said. “It had me fired up, and we had a lot of forced fumbles, sacks and interceptions after that.”
Senior Ethan Ward originally made the switch from quarterback to running back going into this season but has had to switch back after an injury to the starting quarterback Noah Morrison. Hood said that Ward’s positional flexibility has made a massive difference this year.
“I call Ethan Mr. Utility,” Hood said. “The guy plays quarterback, he plays running back, he does things on special teams. Whatever we call him to do, he does. It’s great to have a guy who’s unselfish and who will do things that coming into the season he didn’t necessarily expect he would have to do.”
A theme of the game was errors on special teams. Midtown was first to capitalize on it by forcing a fumble on a punt and scoring a touchdown. Sophomore guard Brady Crep said that that moment set the tone for a strong first half where the Knights scored 20 points.
“I feel like that gave us momentum to perform in the first half,” Crep said. “It really created the right mentality.”
However, the Knights weren’t immune to their own difficulties with special teams with three failed punts and a dropped kickoff resulting in a turnover. The Red Devils were quick to capitalize and score two touchdowns in the second quarter to tie the game 14-14.
“The last two weeks, special teams has cost us,” Hood said. “The focus going into the practice and upcoming week will definitely be special teams because we have a lot of things we have to improve.”
Junior Kentrell White returned an interception more than 70 yards to put the Knights up 20-14 before the half. White said that the two touchdowns by Druid Hills gave him the mentality needed to fight back.
“We started off the second quarter pretty bad, but we had to come back from that,” White said “I was mad and that was the game-changer.”
Midtown’s defense shut out Druid Hills in the second half, and Ward and White connected on a 60-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to close out the game 26-14. Ward said that moment was what confirmed the win.
“The defining moment was the deep touchdown pass to Kentrell that really sealed the game in the fourth quarter,” Ward said. “[In the moment] I was thinking about the coming away with the victory, and that was how we did it.”
The Knights play McNair in their next game on August 30. Hood said that this will be a physical game that will require the team to be physical and be able to keep their performance for the whole game.
McNair is a physical team, and they are coached really hard,” Hood said. “They have a pretty good scheme, but the biggest thing we have to do is be physical because they will be the most physical team we’ve played thus far. We’ve got to go out there fired up and try to carry over what we do in the first quarter into the next three quarters which is what we didn’t do tonight.”
