NORCROSS – It’d be hard to choose which was more dominant Friday night for Meadowcreek's football team — its rushing attack or its defense.
The Mustangs rushed for nearly 378 yards and held visiting Lakeside-DeKalb to 82 total yards in a 42-0 victory in the Region 7-AAAAAAA opener for both schools.
Sixty of Lakeside’s total yards came on a desperation final possession that ended when quarterback Thomas Steele rushed for a six-yard gain to the Meadowcreek 14, but time expired.
Meadowcreek (2-3, 1-0) won its region opener over Lakeside (0-5, 0-1) for the third consecutive season.
“I’m happy that our defense continues to progress, so many young guys, (and) we won the turnover battle,” said Meadowcreek coach Jason Carrera, whose team lost a fumble on a punt return and threw an interception on a botched field goal attempt.
Much of the offensive dominance occurred in an opening half that saw the Mustangs collect nearly 300 yards on the ground.
Tank Thompson capped an eight-play drive with a nifty TD run midway through the second quarter. Thompson stayed on his feet early in the run, then broke two tackles on his way to a 24-yard score that put the Mustangs in front 21-0.
The Meadowcreek fumble on the punt return later in the quarter didn’t hurt after Lakeside kicker Matthew Franklin was short on a 47-yard field goal attempt. Quincy Bonner’s 35-yard completion to Jabari Ponders set up Meadowcreek at the Lakeside 5 and Omie Huntley scooted into the end zone on the next play and the Mustangs went into halftime up 28-0.
Bonner was just 4-for-12 passing for 100 yards, but that included several nice throws that were dropped by Meadowcreek receivers.
“The thing that I was most pleased with is Quincy threw the ball really well,” Carrera said. “We've got to catch more balls offensively. Still not hitting on all cylinders, but all in all it was good."
Rock Gaither’s second TD run of the night, from 33 yards out, made it 35-0 early in the third, and later in the quarter A’Ta Hassan capped the scoring by intercepting Steele for the second time and returning it 47 yards.
Lakeside, which scored its only points of the season in a 49-6 loss to Forsyth Central last week, has lost 14 consecutive games and hasn’t won since last season’s opening weekend win over Decatur.
It took just 13 seconds for Meadowcreek to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
On the first play from scrimmage of the night, Bonner took a sneak and ran, untouched for an 80-yard touchdown and the Mustangs led 7-0.
Lakeside went backwards on a pair of plays on its opening offensive possession — an illegal motion penalty and a combined sack by Kristopher Cassel and Thompson backed up the Vikings to their own 27 early in the first quarter — then Steele tossed his first interception of the night to Joe Jenkins. Meadowcreek embarked on a seven-play drive spent mostly on the ground as the hosts averaged more than 13 yards on six carries, including Gaither’s seven-yard scoring run that made it 14-0 at the 7:21 mark of the opening quarter.
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