OAKWOOD, Ga. — The Board will stay at the Hot Gates of Spartan Field for another year.
West Hall used a balanced attack to knock off Johnson, 29-9, Friday night in the annual Battle of Oakwood at Spartan Field.
Elijah Hayes rushed 19 times for 190 yards and one touchdown to help the Spartans get the win.
"Yeah, another big night with him," West Hall head coach Krofton Montgomery said about Hayes. "He's definitely a kind of a home run hitter. We probably should have run him a little more. Probably should have run the ball a little more in some spots."
Montgomery was pleased to get more out of the passing game this week than the 55 passing yards they had a week ago in the loss to East Hall. Brett Sturm was 16-of-25 passing for 180 yards and three touchdowns.
"There are definitely some things that I'm excited about," he said about the passing game. "We're gonna need to be able to be balanced and do things, but there's also some stuff I felt like we left on the table."
The Spartans opened the game with an 80-yard scoring drive, followed by an 86-yard scoring march to go up 14-0 in the opening quarter. In those two drives, Hayes was tough to catch, recording runs of 14, 25 and 16 to help set up both touchdowns.
Sturm tossed his first touchdown on the opening drive, a 31-yard pass to Marcus Pugh, and hit Keyvan Allen on a 26-yard strike on the second drive.
Johnson was able to slow the Spartans down with clock control over the next quarter and a half, holding the ball over the next eight minutes. Unfortunately, that drive ended on the West Hall 9-yard line when Matt Hale picked up a Johnson fumble.
"I was excited with the way it started offensively," Montgomery said. "We did some things throwing the ball, which I talked about being more balanced and being able to throw it because we couldn't last week. So it was a big piece of the game this week.
But the Spartans' offense failed the find the end zone until late in the second quarter when Sturm connected with Riley Packard on an 8-yard pass in the back corner of the endzone to go up, 21-7.
"The game kind of slowed down, and the pace slowed down," Montgomery said. "They were able to put together some long drives and kind of disrupt some rhythm, and we had some penalties that put us behind the sticks, getting us off schedule, pretty much."
Johnson found its way into West Hall territory five times during the game and came away with just nine points. In the first half, Edgar Vazquez's 45-yard field goal was the only points they could muster. The Knights took advantage of a Spartan fumbled punt snap and got the ball on the West Hall 29-yard line on the drive.
In the second half, Johnson missed a 42-yard field goal and scored on a Demetri Moon five-yard run. On the drive, the Moon completed a 21-yard pass to Nehemiah Anderson and had a run of 35 yards. Moon finished the night with 144 yards on 28 carries. He completed 3-of-16 passes for 39 yards.
West Hall's final touchdown came on a Hayes 67-yard run with 7:36 left in the game. Hale converted a two-point try to push the lead to 29-3.
"Hats off to Johnson, they played hard," Montgomery said. "I'm happy with the win. Like I said, you got to take when you get them, but we've got a long way to go."
