The North Forsyth High School Raiders were defeated by Woodstock Wolverines on Friday, August 27th with a score of 13-14. The Raiders held Woodstock in the first three quarters to a close game. The Raiders’ record downgrades to 3-2 while the Wolverines gain their first win and improve to 1-4. These records will help determine who will make it to the region 7AAAAAAA playoffs.

Woodstock acted very quickly in the first quarter, as running back Andrew Bartolero scored a touchdown in just two minutes of the game starting. North could not answer in the first quarter, as the Wolverines defense was putting multiple stops on running backs Jared Lucero and Patrick Corrigan. Raiders quarterback Brady Meitz had difficulty finding open receivers as Tucker Hartsfield and Nicky Dalmolin both were out of the game with injuries. In the late first quarter, the Raiders were able to get a drive going in the endzone as senior receiver Jackson Rosebush caught a 30 yard throw to put the Raiders in scoring drive.

North was at the fifteen yard line on Woodstock’s side of the field. As the Raiders attempted both running plays, the Wolverines were putting a stop to every running play in the game so far. North had come to a third down with eight to go. Mietz threw the football on the third down to senior Anthony Herock and North was back in the game. The entire second quarter following Herock’s touchdown was scoreless. Both defenses were playing very tough, as Raiders defensive back Miles Hartsfield was able to grab an interception in the second quarter with two minutes remaining. As the Raiders had the ball on the fifty yard line, they failed to put the ball in scoring position for special teams, who for both teams, were struggling in the game.

The third quarter consisted of Woodstock’s offense powering through the Raiders defense, but North was able to capitalize on Woodstock’s throwing plays, as cornerbacks Austin Colon and Chris Dixon both held Woodstock to one first down the entire game from a catch from a receiver. North’s offense struggled to gain first downs as the Wolverines defense was getting to Brady Meitz almost every play. Jared Lucero fought very hard to gain his teams first downs, as him and Corrigan were the main factors in the offense the whole game, but the Raiders could not put points on the board. With about six minutes left in the third quarter, Woodstock answered with a touchdown, improving the score to 14-7.

The fourth quarter was starting to become inconsistent for Woodstock as they had the ball at the start of the fourth. Defensive tackle Sam Thompkins powered through Woodstock’s linemen, making the Wolverines lose yardage and got them to a fourth down. Woodstock’s special teams were struggling the whole game, as the ball went out of bounds each kickoff they had given, which puts the ball on the forty yard line for the opposing team when a ball goes out of bounds during kickoff. North had a very good opportunity to score. Brady Mietz had barely thrown the ball the entire game, but trusted his running backs to get the job done. Patrick Corrigan had brought the ball to twenty yard line, with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. With help from Jared Lucero to bring the ball on the six yard line, North had answered with a touchdown late in the fourth to bring the score to 13-14. Unfortunately, the Raiders special teams had missed the field goal that would have tied the game and hopefully would have brought the game to overtime. The remaining minutes of the game consisted of Woodstock running out the clock and with two minutes remaining, doing two quarterback kneels to run the clock, ending the game with a score of 13-14

The Raiders might have lost, but they understand that losing is a part of winning, as senior Jack Tucker stated “losing is all part of the process…we see what went wrong and try our best to fix it as best we can. No team is ever perfect, but we can work on our mistakes to become better.” The Raiders will try their best to improve their mistakes as they take on Forsyth Central on the 11th of October.