North Johnston has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. They will venture away from home to take on the Lakewood Leopards at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both come into the game bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
North Johnston is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They blew past Hobbton 56-34 on Friday. The Panthers pushed the score to 50-27 by the end of the third, a deficit the Wildcats cut but never quite recovered from.
It was another big night for Kaleb Pone, who threw for 286 yards and five touchdowns while picking up 11.4 yards per attempt, and also rushed for 185 yards and a touchdown while picking up 9.7 yards per carry. With that strong performance, he is now averaging an impressive 110.8 rushing yards per game.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, North Johnston was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 281 rushing yards. That's the most rushing yards they've posted since back in September of 2023.
Meanwhile, Lakewood was not the first on the board last Friday, but they got there more often. They slipped by Red Springs 27-26. The 27-point effort marked the Leopards' lowest-scoring matchup of the season, but in the end it didn't matter.
Among those leading the charge was Nakai Owens, who rushed for 74 yards and a touchdown on only five carries.
The win got North Johnston back to even at 2-2. As for Lakewood, their victory was their third straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 4-1.
North Johnston suffered a grim 28-8 defeat to Lakewood in their previous matchup back in September of 2023. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Lakewood's Calvin Lacewell, who rushed for 150 yards and two touchdowns on only 14 carries. Now that North Johnston knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
