Andre the giant: Goldsboro's Montgomery rushes for 4 touchdowns

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on August 29, 2009 11:23 PM

• Print
• Email

Held without an offensive touchdown one week ago, Goldsboro High finally navigated its way into the end zone Saturday evening.

A bruising 222-pound junior, Andre Montgomery plowed his way through the Eastern Wayne defense for 207 yards as the Cougars dumped their county rivals 26-8 at Little Big Horn.

Montgomery scored on runs of 5, 49, 9 and 8 yards.

"Andre did a wonderful job for us tonight," said Goldsboro coach Eric Reid. "Our biggest problem we have to work on is line play. These last two games have showed me that we're a legitimate 1-A team, but we've got to do something to get our linemen to grow.

"We're just not coming off the ball quick enough. They know their assignments, but I don't know if it's nervousness or what. We have to grow up quick."

The Cougars (1-1 overall) drew 17 penalties for 133 yards in the 2-hour, 53-minute affair. Twelve infractions occurred on the offensive side of the ball and two holding flags negated touchdowns.

Eastern Wayne (0-2) suffered a similar fate.

The Warriors managed just 1 yard of total offense in the opening half and had 60 yards in penalties. Eight of their 18 offensive plays resulted in positive yardage, but they trailed 14-0 at the break.

"Offensively, we put our defense in a lot of holes and our defense played hard," said Eastern Wayne head coach Guy Williams. "I think we got a lot better defensively tonight than we played last week. The offense is just taking more time.

"People look at rush yards and those types of stats. A lot of the passing that we do is our rushing because we want to put people in space ... distribute the ball a little bit better."

Eastern Wayne finished with 91 yards of total offense.

Seven backs toted the pigskin in Goldsboro's full-house backfield scheme. Wayne Hammonds emerged the team's second-leading rusher behind Montgomery with 83 yards on nine carries.

Freddie Jones and Vontarius Kornegay supplied 41 and 31 yards, respectively.

"We're getting the blocks, but we're not sustaining," said Reid, whose team compiled 400 yards total offense. "If we can sustain it a little bit longer, maybe we can get them through (more consistently). That's something that can be fixed.

"We've just got to keep sharpening our tools."

The Warriors avoided the shutout when backup quarterback Jalen Barnes hit Lamar Best with a 6-yard scoring strike late in the fourth quarter. Azaveus Dickens added the two-point run.

Barnes replaced first-year starter Rashawn Barnes, who spent the final eight minutes on the bench. Williams said he didn't know the extent of Barnes' injury.

Goldsboro, which improved to 6-3 against county teams during Reid's tenure as head coach, returns to action Friday at East Carteret. Eastern Wayne is the guest of Wilmington New Hanover.