North Augusta avenged its 2023 nail biter rivalry loss to Midland Valley in a big way Friday night with a 45-21 victory over the Mustangs in SCHSL Region 4-AAAA play.
Obviously, it was a big rivalry win, but there was some stuff that North Augusta coach Richard Bush was visibly upset about regarding the way his players handled the win emotionally, including some “extracurricular” stuff that Bush says was not Yellow Jacket football.
“I’m excited we got the win,” Bush said, “but we gotta clean up a lot of things, because that’s not the way we want to play football.”
Things got started in a way that no one wanted as Midland Valley’s Satcher Redd went down on the field with a bad injury, causing the ambulance to come and take him off on a stretcher. We’ll update this if we find out more information.
In the actual game, North Augusta quarterback Corey Tillman Jr. opened the scoring when he took a keeper to the house from 40 yards out to give the Jackets an early 7-0 lead.
Midland Valley was able to answer with a long drive capped off by Preston Mcnair’s plunge from the 1-yard-line to tie it the game at 7-7l
That didn’t sit well with Yellow Jackets running back Michael Doe as he took the next play from scrimmage 87 yards to untie the game.
The back-and-forth affair continued as Midland Valley found the end zone on a pass play from Preston Butler knotting things at 14-14.
The rest of the first half was all North Augusta as it scored 17 unanswered points with a pair of touchdowns coming by way of Tillman’s arm as he found JD Swinger for the first and Dawson Campbell for the second. The final three points came from the foot of Gavin Rodriguez.
This concluded one of the wildest, slowest halves of football you’ll ever see.
The Mustangs couldn’t get anything going on the first drive of the second half and North Augusta took advantage of that as Tillman found Isaiah Smith for the touchdown to make it a 24-point game.
The Valley answered back with a score, trying to scratch and claw back into it, but that comeback was quickly shut down when Tillman scored his fifth touchdown of the game, this one on a pass to Toian Nabriat.
Four of the five touchdowns he was responsible for were through the air; the other was a rushing score.
“He’s improved each week…the offensive line gave him time to make some throws which is big,” said Bush about his talented senior quarterback. “I’ve been really hard on him lately and he’s accepted the coaching and has improved the last few weeks.”
North Augusta’s seventh straight win of the season sets up a monster matchup next Friday when the Jackets host Gray Collegiate in a regular season finale that will determine the Region 4-AAAA champion.
