Northeast shocks ACE to the tune of 46-0 drubbing as Raiders stay undefeated in region play

As he stood behind his team while the ACE band played the alma mater, Keith Hatcher hardly moved.

He wasn’t the only person who was surprised by the end result of Friday night’s game, and had undoubtedly already started wondering what happened.

Northeast owned both lines of scrimmage and took control from the start en route to a 46-0 romp over ACE in a GHSA Region 2-A/Division I battle at Thompson Stadium.

“We knew how talented they were coming in,” Hatcher said. “They were bigger than us. We didn’t do a good job of slowing them down.”

The game marked the first time the Gryphons have been shut out under Hatcher, now in his third season. It was the biggest margin of defeat since ACE lost 48-0 to FPD to open the 2021 season, a loss that led to the program’s first coaching change.

The Raiders, meanwhile, got their second straight shutout while cracking the 45-point mark.

The last shutout came against Jefferson County, now on a 16-game losing streak with five shutouts to start the season. This shutout — one against an expected playoff participant coming off two straight 8-3 seasons — seemed quite different.

“Just how physical we were up front,” Northeast head coach Jeremy Wiggins said about what pleased him the most. “We wanted to come in and establish the run. We’re a good running football team, but we really wanted to establish the run and be physical up front.”

The Raiders ran 20 times before attempting a pass.

Tailback Nick Woodford and quarterback Reginald Glover were a serious 1-2 punch. At halftime, Glover had rambled for 157 yards on 11 carries while Woodford pounded for 98 yards on 12 carries as the Raiders took a 27-0 lead through two quarters. Woodford scored from 1, 6, and 61 yards out, Glover from 21 in the opening 24 minutes.

Woodford almost caught Glover with a 57-yard scoring run on the second play of the third quarter, the senior reading blocks and getting some quality downfield blocking from his quarterback, among others.

At that point Glover had a 165-155 lead in rushing yards. Not for long. On the second play of Northeast’s next series, Glover blasted and weaved his way fairly amazingly for a 72-yard touchdown run to extend his rushing lead for good.

That put the Raiders (4-1/4-0) up 39-0 with 9:12 left in the third quarter, and all but ended the rushing exploits of Glover (15-253) and Woodford (14-157).

“We didn’t tackle well,” Hatcher said. “We couldn’t block them up front.”

The video will show plenty of both, with Glover especially being almost a tease on long runs as Gryphons whiffed. ACE managed only 168 yards of offense on 51 snaps. Ace Hatcher was 10 of 29 for 106 yards and two interceptions, standout receiver Brice Whitley catching six for 52 yards.

How the Raiders handled those two was second on the list of what made Wiggins smile.

“We preached that all week,” Wiggins said. “7 (Whitley) and 15 (Hatcher). That was the only two people we were thinking about. You take (Whitley) away, that’s a big part of their offense. They do a good job of mixing him up and stuff, so we wanted to make sure we took him away immediately.”

Northeast started working on the passing game a little in the third quarter, calling three straight pass plays. The Raiders completed them all, the final throw going to Decorian Brundage for a 12-yard score with 8:56 left in the third for the Raiders’ final points.

ACE did manage 19 plays on Northeast’s side of the field, but couldn’t muster up any more than one sustained drive.

In the first quarter, they got to the Northeast 36-yardline but were sent backwards on a 16-yard intentional grounding penalty. The Gryphons got to the 28 early in the second quarter, but Kortnei Williams picked off Ace Hatcher inside the 5 and had a nice return negated, putting Northeast on the 7. Glover then went 32 yards and Woodford 61.

A fourth-and-8 pass at Northeast’s 34 early in the third quarter came up short by a yard. The Gryphons’ best possession of the night started on their own 14, sparked by Hatcher’s pass to Jaylon Davis for 24 yards and then two Hatcher scrambles for 18 and 16 yards.

It just wasn’t ACE’s night, however. On second and 6 at the 13-yardline, an open receiver dropped a pass in the end zone. Two plays later, the Gryphons gave it up on downs.

“We know how good they are, how offensive they are and what they can do,” Wiggins said. “We wanted to stay on them defensively, try to take away some of the good things they do.”

The 46 points were somewhat unexpected, the 0 scored by ACE moreso. Perhaps the most surprising was the 549-168 margin in total yards of offense.

“We always find a way to give up a dumb play or something,” Wiggins said. 

There were plenty of mistakes for the Raiders, though. Northeast was flagged a mind-numbing 21 times for 150 yards. Some holds nullified touchdowns, and a whopping 14 penalties were for five yards.

“Oh my God,” Wiggins said, his mood dropping a tad. “We can’t do that against a real good football team. We can’t do that when we go down to Dublin.”