Spring Creek’s Christian Lopez, right, gets assistance from his teammates to take down a North Johnston running back during their Neuse Six 2A opener Friday evening in Kenly. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
Spring Creek (white) and North Johnston (red) have opened the Neuse Six 2A season against each other during the past three seasons. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
Spring Creek’s Orrin Tickles tries to break away from two North Johnston defenders. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
Spring Creek quarterback Kamron McDaniel is sacked by North Johnston’s Jordin Moore (2) and Cooper Gibson (33) during first-quarter action Friday evening. (Rudy Coggins|mountolivetribune.com)
KENLY — Using adversity as a building block to success during a chaotic season hasn’t destroyed Spring Creek’s character on the football field.
The Gators continue to display a solid work ethic in daily practices which, sooner or later, is eventually going to translate into a “W” under the Friday night lights.
Until then, each snap is comparable to a growing pain.
“Do we like to take these losses?” Wise said after a 64-0 loss against North Johnston in the Neuse Six 2A opener for both teams. “It’s part of the learning process … just really hard to judge our team [right now]. There is determination in our team.”
Intent on establishing its running attack, Spring Creek struggled to move the ball. The Panthers dominated the line of scrimmage, forced hurried passes and clogged the running lanes.
Turnovers didn’t help the Gators, either.
North Johnston converted six miscues into touchdowns. Junior outside linebacker Traquin Watson returned two interceptions — 16 and 18 yards — to the house. Senior outside linebacker Jordin Moore recovered a fumble in the end zone.
In all, the Panthers tallied 43 points off SC mistakes.
“We want to try and move the ball around, but it’s very hard to do that when we have lower football IQ guys that we’re putting together and shape something up [on the field],” Wise said. “We’re trying to figure it out.”
Spring Creek broke off some sizable yardage gains in the second half, but turned the ball over twice on downs and lost two fumbles.
The Gators blocked a field goal in the fourth quarter.
Wise remains optimistic and confident in his players’ abilities with four weeks left in the regular season. He contends a victory is on the horizon and is eager to see the team profit from its pre-game effort.
“It’s just unfortunate that the way we practice, we don’t play games the same way,” Wise said. “If you come to our practice and watch us, you’d be like ‘holy cow, they’ve got all the pieces to the puzzle.’ Then, we come into the game and it’s like, I don’t know, we psych ourselves down.
“Maybe they’re not used to being in that mode. We’ve got to figure it out.”
Spring Creek (0-6 overall, 0-1 Neuse Six 2A) returns home Friday to face cross-county rival Eastern Wayne. Kickoff is 7 p.m.
North Johnston 64, Spring Creek 0
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
NJ — Gibson 1 run (Richardson kick), 8:21
NJ — Gibson 62 run (Richardson kick), 5:03
NJ — Gibson 29 run (Richardson kick), 1:37
NJ — Moore recovered fumble in end zone (Richardson kick), 1:26
NJ — Watson 16 INT return (Richardson kick), 1:01
NJ — Barnes 20 run (2-pt conversion), 0:19.1
Second Quarter
NJ — Watson 18 INT return (Richardson kick), 11:30
Third Quarter
NJ — Turner 51 run (Richardson kick), 10:14
Fourth Quarter
NJ — 2-yard run (Richardson kick), 8:48
