Norris Senators roll past Jefferson, 30-14

August 21, 2019 by Collin Riggs

On a hot Thursday afternoon, Norris Senators and Jefferson Bobcats met at Maverick Stadium to play football.

Norris was alsmost as hot as the weather, winning 30-14 in convincing fashion.

Jefferson won the coin toss, and they drove hard across the field, fighting for first downs, but inevitably for naught. They turned the ball over to Norris.

For Norris’s first play of the game, Nick Moog ran the ball 88 yards for a touchdown. After a failed two-point conversion, it was Jefferson’s ball again.

Not wanting to be shown up, they fought their way down the field. Each yard was a grueling struggle, but they made it, with the final play a 23-yard pass to Junior Adams. Jefferson managed a 2-point conversion, and, for a moment, pulled ahead. Before the end of the first quarter, both teams had already scored and it looked as if Norris had met their match.

Now, it’s hard to follow up an 88-yard touchdown on the very first play of a game. The other team’s loose now, and they’re not going to be caught off guard. At least – that’s the way it is in theory. In practice, Norris followed up their first play of the game with an equally impressive 55-yard touchdown, again carried by Nick Moog. This time, they did get the two-point conversion, bringing Norris back into the lead.

At that point was where the game began to get a bit one-sided. Norris intercepted the ball and ran it to the two yard line, scored again on the next play, and then soon got credited with a safety after blocking a fourth-down punt by Jefferson.

Jefferson scored with 4:22 seconds left in the fourth quarter, but Norris denied their extra point, leaving the score at 24-14. Thirteen seconds later, Norris player Nick Moog scored again with a 30-yard touchdown run, denying Jefferson even the hope of being able to stage a comeback.

The game was a joy to watch from the Norris perspective, and it’s rare to see so many big plays in a single game, let alone from a single player. Nick Moog’s family must have a great chiropractor for the young player to just carry the team on his back like that. All joking aside, though, Norris, as an entire team, worked incredibly hard for the win – and only achieved it through the efforts of all the players together. It’s always worth remembering the linebackers and the defensive backs and the tight ends who all work together to set up the plays.

Head Coach Richie Noe was really pleased with how the game went, and had plenty of respect for Norris’s opponents.

“Jefferson is a well coached team that had some really good pieces. Like us, they got hit hard by graduation, but [we] were too much for them. Eli Nelson, Matt Clayton, Dominic McMillan, Caleb Turner, and Grady Cox were too much for their quarterback to get comfortable and forced them into jump balls,” said the coach.