Indians stumble, 28-0, against ‘physical’ Patterson Mill squad

By Victor Hensley

BEL AIR - Fresh off of an emo- tional senior-night victory on Oct. 14, the North East Indians were tasked with one of their toughest challenges of the season last Friday.

And, regardless of what the final scoreboard says, they undoubtedly stepped up to the occasion.

The Indians (1-7) dropped a defensive battle, 28-0, to the Patterson Mill Huskies (7-1) in a contest that saw their defense thrive and offense struggle against one of the top teams in Harford County.

“They’re a physical team, and that’s something you can definitely tell they pride themselves on,” said Taylor Slaughenhoupt, the Indians’ head coach, when asked about Patterson Mill. “They were in good position, it looked like they were communicating pretty well and were on the same page with each other. … They’ve got a couple of guys that like to fly around and hit, which, from a defensive perspective, you always love to see.”

Entering last Friday’s game, North East knew it had one job: stop the Huskies’ ever-present rushing attack.

While the Indians were able to mostly limit big run plays against the Huskies, save for one or two, Patterson Mill still managed to punch in all four of their touchdowns on the ground, including three in the first half.

From the jump, however,

North East couldn’t get out of its own way.

On the game’s opening drive, the Indians had the Huskies in third-and-long situations on a couple of different occasions, but continuously made mistakes like jumping offsides to keep the Huskies’ offense on the field, inevitably making them pay for it.

“They ended up scoring (on that drive),” Slaughenhoupt said. “They’re a good team, so if you give them two or three extra chances during the drive, they’ll end up putting points on the board, and that’s what they did.”

At halftime, Patterson Mill held firmly onto a 21-0 lead as the Indians’ simply couldn’t get into an offensive groove all night.

Defensively, North East allowed just seven total points in the second half – forcing a few three-and-outs in the process –but with the Huskies being a runfirst team, they were able to chew up a chunk of the clock every time they had the ball. They rapidly tore through the third and fourth quarters, preventing the Indians from having too many shots at putting together a scoring drive.

“When a running team gets a couple of first downs, they’re going to let that clock run,” Slaughenhoupt said of Patterson Mill’s ability to chew clock. “Especially when you're playing catch up, you go three-and-out, get the ball back over to them, and you just lost another four minutes.”

This week, North East gets its final test of the regular season when it visits rival Rising

Sun (5-3) for The Battle of 272 in its inaugural season. Slaughenhoupt said that, after facing a run-heavy team in Patterson Mill, their game plan against Rising Sun – known for the success of their dual-threat quarterback, Gannon Russell – won’t be much different. This time, though, he’s hoping for better results.

“It'll be real similar to what we did on Friday night: stay in our gaps and once we get hands on the ball carrier, make sure we bring them down,” Slaughenhoupt said. “It's a fun rivalry, man. And I think what they're doing – putting a name behind it, putting a trophy behind it – it'll be a good time. It'll be a great atmosphere on Friday night.”