NORTH EAST — For the sixth consecutive meeting in the annual “Battle of 272”, Rising Sun came out victorious. The Tigers defeated North East 41-6 to secure their first victory of the season and snap a nine-game losing streak dating back to last season.
Rising Sun opened the scoring with 1:19 to play in the first quarter, when Jullian Hubbard capped off a 10-play drive with a three-yard rushing touchdown to give Rising Sun a 7-0 lead. Hubbard went on to score three touchdowns.
Sun extended its lead on its ensuing offensive possession, this time a nine-play drive that resulted in a nine-yard touchdown run by Dillon Lukiewski to make it 14-0. The Tigers padded their lead to 21 just before the half on Hubbard’s second score of the night from 21 yards out.
Rising Sun followed up its first half performance with a strong start to the second half. After its defense forced a North East three-and-out, Hubbard took Sun’s first offensive play 57 yards to the house for his third score of the night. Despite facing some injury setbacks at the beginning of the season, Hubbard has embraced his role as the lead running back in Rising Sun’s offense and credited the play of his offensive line for his strong performance Friday night.
“They hit their blocks, picked up on a lot of key things like blitzes and communicated well,” Hubbard said of his offensive line. “I had an injury in the beginning of the year and I was very discouraged but I’ve just kept my head high and progressed each play.”
Rising Sun quarterback Owen McBride capped off a near perfect performance for the Rising Sun offense with two passing touchdowns in the second half. McBride connected with M.J. Brusio on a score from 29 yards out and another to Lukiewski from 35 yards out.
McBride noted the importance for the offense to finish drives during Friday night’s win after struggling to do so during their first three games of the season.
“We definitely worked on that a lot and it paid off,” McBride said of his offense finishing drives. “It’s definitely been a long road, but we’ve pushed through as a team and I couldn’t be happier right now.”
On the defensive side, Rising Sun forced three turnovers and kept North East from getting a single first down until midway through the third quarter. Brusio led the way with three sacks and noted how keeping the Indians behind the sticks for much of the night was a big factor in the defense’s success.
“Coach came out first play and said that we were going to blitz right off the bat,” Brusio said. “First play, they were in the backfield and we just kept tallying up those negative yards.”
North East found the end zone when Dylan Nastasi connected with Travis Creese for a 10-yard score with just over eight minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
Rising Sun head coach Dom Massimiano felt that his team put together a complete performance on both sides of the ball and was proud of how they played from start to finish.
“We put a complete game together,” Massimiano said. “I was envisioning saying at halftime that we played a complete half and we did. I told them in the locker room that we needed another half because we haven’t seen ourselves finish a game. So for these guys to go out and finish and our seconds to get in and continue to dominate, that felt great.”
Massimiano is excited to see how they can build off Friday’s victory moving forward. Rising Sun (1-3) will host Patterson Mill (3-1) next week. North East (0-4) will travel to Fallston (2-2).
“Any win is a stepping stone towards more success,” Massimiano said. “This team right now is playing together and they know what they want. I’m excited to go see this team build off of a win and see what it looks like against a really good opponent with Patterson Mill.”
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