North Harrison senior running back Matt Bruderle ran up 286 yards on the ground Friday night, and scored four touchdowns to lead the Cougars to a 47-13 Mid Southern Conference (MSC) victory over the visiting Salem Lions. Bruderle amassed the yardage off of 18 carries.
It wasn’t just Bruderle that caused the damage for the Cougars either. Three other North Harrison running backs scored touchdowns for the Cougars included Bruderle’s fellow senior Jimmy Slucher, as well as sophomores Wyatt Faith and Mitch Bolin. The Cougars in fact amassed a total of 526 total yards of offense in the contest.
It didn’t look as though the Cougars were going to have such a good start, though. Their first apparent touchdown, a score by Bruderle with 3:39 left in the 1st quarter, was called back to the Salem 45 yard line due to a North Harrison penalty.
The Cougars scored not long after that, when time was beginning to expire in the 1st period. With 14 seconds left, Jimmy Slucher scored from 10 yards out.
Salem gave up 34 unanswered points to the hosts in the decisive 2nd quarter.
First, Bruderle scampered in from 47 yards out for the touchdown just eight seconds into the period, and he added another TD when he scored with 5:52 left in the first half, scoring from 4 yards out.
A little over a minute later (4:43), Mitch Bolin added his two cents worth when he scored from 5 yards out, giving the Cougars a 28-0 lead.
Bruderle got in on the action again with a 50 yard touchdown run with only 1:39 left in the first half, and with 27 seconds to go before half time, Wyatt Faith had the longest single rush on the ground from either team on the night, when he ran in a TD from 77 yards out, off of a pass from Derrick Harter. The conversion attempt for 2 points failed, but Zack Stephenson scored the extra point on a kick after the first five North Harrison touchdowns. The hosts led 46-0 at the half.
In the second half, Salem struck for their first TD just past the halfway point in the 3rd period. Coty Crady scored on a 14 yard pass from Jacob Williams, but the extra point kick failed.
For North Harrison, Bruderle got one last lick in, when he scored off of a 55 yard touchdown run.A 2 point conversion run attempt failed.
Salem had one more score in store for the Cougars, when they scored with 6:14 left in the game, when Crady ran it into the end zone. Landon Winslow kicked the extra point.
Salem head coach Brian Motsinger said that the early going was disastrous for the Lions.
“Early on, we had touchdowns and penalties that really hurt,” he explained. “We’re not good enough to recover from that. Defensively, we just did a terrible job of tackling.”
North Harrison head coach Jason Mullis said he thought that some of the criticism he’s heard about his team after they lost their first two games of the season (to West Washington and Corydon Central) have been premature, and unfair.
“I’ve told everybody, they’re capable of doing something like tonight,” he pointed out. “The offense brought it tonight. We play a physical style of ball. This is a good win to get some confidence going into next week.”
Motsinger hopes Salem can recover and get things more in order over the next few weeks, but they have MSC leader Brownstown invading their turf in Salem in a 7 p.m. game Friday.
Motsinger has had to play some fairly inexperienced players, with four normal starters suspended, and about a half dozen others having moved from the school or having quit the team.
“We haven’s gotten together as a team yet,” explained Motsinger. “We’re awfully green right now. We have several first year varsity players. Some of the kids we’re playing were playing jayvee last year.”
For his part, Mullis enjoyed the game, after the problems during the first few weeks of the season.
“It was fun to be part of,” Mullis said, but he cautioned, “They’ll need it next week.” Next week they host Paoli in a 7 p.m. start.
“You don’t put 47 points on the board if you don’t know what you’re doing.”