Hawks fall at Pine Forest

by John Lucas | Oct 15, 2022 | Triton

Hawks quarterback Jalen Evans runs at Pine Forest on Friday night.
(Dunn Area Sports Photo/John Lucas)

Triton’s varsity football team fell, 34-6, on the road against All American 3-A/4-A Conference leader Pine Forest on the Trojans’ Homecoming on Friday night.

“We put ourselves in a huge hole at the beginning of the game,” said Triton coach Ben Penny. “Field position, obviously No. 7 (Latrell Carter) was a first team all-conference returner last year and after the first punt we were trying to get it off to the sideline, out of bounds, most of the time and it just didn’t work out that way and he continued to put our defense up against the wall.”

Junior A.J. Dewar ran for 111 yards on 11 carries to lead the Hawks (4-4, 3-2 AAC).

“What he’s doing right now is pretty special,” Penny said. “A.J. has a motor and A.J. has a lot of heart. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing at practice or in games, he goes after it. J.J. (Cowan)’s still dealing with a lot of pain and not able to go a whole lot and (Dewar)’s done such a good job picking him up and pretty much worked his way into a starting role back there. I’m very proud of him.”

Jalen Evan completed one pass for 21 yards and ran for 13 yards on five carries. Shyheim Cooke had a 21-yard reception, had a five-yard run and returned a kick for a touchdown. J.J. Cowan ran for 15 yards on four carries. Camauri McDougald ran for two yards. Eligah Holmes ran for one yard.

Senior Zarron Jeter ran for 85 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries and junior Xayden Watson completed 5-of-12 passes for 83 yards and a touchdown and ran for 24 yards on eight carries to lead the Trojans (6-2, 5-0).

Pine Forest scored 21 unanswered points in the first half to lead 21-0 at halftime.

Cooke returned the opening kickoff of the second half 88 yards to the end zone to the put the Hawks on the board, but the extra point was blocked.

“We got a big break with the kick return from Shy, his third one on the year,” Penny said. “We thought we had a little momentum going with a stop and then we just had some adversity that put us down and hurt us and we weren’t able to keep momentum.”

But Pine Forest scored 13 more unanswered points and shut out Triton in the fourth quarter.

Both teams are at home on Friday for their respective Senior Nights. Pine Forest hosts conference foe Harnett Central (2-6, 2-3) and Triton faces conference and Harnett County rival Overhills (6-2, 4-1).

“We’ve just got to go to work and fix the problems we’ve got up front on offense and heal up,” Penny said. “I’m afraid we’ve left with some injuries tonight that we’ll have to evaluate over the weekend and see where we’re at with those guys. It’s a big rivalry game and we take pride in the county championship. We got it last year and we want to keep the thing. And it’s Senior Night and we’ve got 22 seniors on the football team, and we want to send them off on a good note.”