Football Recap: New Hanover Turns Things Around After Road Loss

There's no place like home for New Hanover, who bounced back after a loss on the road last Friday. They put the hurt on the Topsail Pirates with a sharp 35-14 victory on Friday. With the Wildcats ahead 21-0 at the half, the game was all but over already.

Tony Clark-Nelson continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 117 yards and two touchdowns on only eight carries. His longest rush was for an impressive 58 yards, which helps to explain his lofty yards per carry total. Tanahri Johnson was another key player, throwing for 146 yards and one TD.

New Hanover's run defense was locked in: Topsail could only muster -0.8 yards per carry. The team can thank Jayden George for the heroic effort on defense: he. New Hanover's run defense has been on the up-and-up: they allowed 4.31 yards per carry earlier this season, but they've only allowed 5.7 on average over their last five games.

Jayden George

Total Tackles

10/31/25 vs Topsail	10
10/24/25 @ Laney	2
10/17/25 vs Ashley	3
10/10/25 @ West Brunswick	3
10/03/25 vs Hoggard	5
+ 5 more games

New Hanover's defense also made the game a nightmare for the opposing QB, racking up 7.5 sacks. The heavy lifting was done by Tully Dunne and George, who racked up six sacks between them. With that strong performance, George is now averaging an impressive 5.3 total tackles per game.

Although Topsail took the loss, they still got scores from Cameron Koehler and Gunnar Haynes.

New Hanover has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four matchups. That's provided a nice bump to their 5-5 record this season. Those wins came thanks in part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 30.8 points over those games. As for Topsail, they are on a 14-game losing streak (dating back to last season) that has dropped them down to 0-10.

Coming up, New Hanover will host Heritage at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Topsail does not have any more games scheduled as of now.