Central outlasts Northwestern to set up a marquee matchup with Carol City next week

It wasn’t anything close to a work of art for the Central Rockets on Friday night.

But, in a game marred by an eye-popping 47 accepted penalties for a whopping 380 yards that took three hours and 20 minutes to play, Central did everything necessary to outlast neighborhood rival Northwestern 38-10 at Traz Powell Stadium.

The District 16-6A contest was an important one as it now clears the way for the most anticipated matchup of the year next Friday when Central, ranked No. 6 nationally, and Carol City (No. 12) square off in the now-dubbed “Game of the Year” in South Florida that will decide the District 16-6A title.

And much like Carol City on Thursday night with Booker T. Washington, the Rockets spent much of the night in a dogfight with the Bulls before pulling away in the fourth quarter to win by a margin not indicative of how close and tough the game actually was.

Central only led 17-10 entering the fourth quarter and the Bulls (4-4, 2-1) had the ball to start the quarter trying to drive for the tying score.

But a turnover followed by a Lexington Joseph 32-yard touchdown run pushed the lead back to 24-10 with 9:18 left and the Rockets pulled away from there. A 21-yard Juan Henry scoring run at 5:41 and 60-yard bomb from quarterback Maurice Underwood to Anthony Fredrick with 2:19 left finished things off.

“We knew it would be tough tonight,” Central head coach Roland Smith said. “But when you take on your arch rival, a school that’s only about 30 blocks away, you just know it’s going to be a fight and we knew they would come out battling.”

With 18 penalties in the first quarter alone, neither team could seemingly get out of its own way and also engaged in plenty of chippy play.

“When the referees call things that tight, it makes it more difficult for the kids to get into a rhythm so the first part of the game was a real struggle,” Smith said. “But I thought our kids did a good job of making adjustments in the second half, coaching staff as well, I think we scored on every single drive in the second half.”

After each team traded field goals, the Rockets took a lead they would never lose just 2:24 before halftime when Underwood dropped back and fired a perfect bomb, hitting Jaylin Young in stride for a 64-yard touchdown and 10-3 lead at the break.

“We definitely came out sluggish and sloppy in the first half and I just talked to my team at halftime and told them to stay with it and keep our heads up,” said Underwood, who completed 13-of-26 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns. “In the second half we came out with a different mindset and got things done and now we can move on.”

Underwood then led the Rockets on a 13-play, 88-yard drive to open the second half, hitting Shamar Zaragoza for a 4-yard strike to make it 17-3.

But the Bulls, thanks to a long 60-yard kickoff return by Karman Kinchens, put together their only scoring drive of the night, a short five play, 22-yarder with Nathan Noel scoring from 2 yards out late in the third to cut the Central lead back to seven.

But the one constant for most of the night was the Central defense, which sacked Northwestern quarterback Isiah Velez five times and basically shut the Bulls offense down until giving up garbage time yards late after they had built a big lead.

“We’ve been working hard all week getting ready for this and wanted to come out and get things done tonight,” said Rockets defensive lineman Andre Auguste, who recorded a pair of sacks and five tackles for losses. “We just worked to keep up the intensity all night.”

Now the stage is set and let the hype begin as Central (7-1, 3-0) will spend the week prepping for Carol City and vice versa in a game that might be just as competitive in the social media world as well.

“I’m very excited, it should be a big week,” Auguste said. “There will be a lot of hype on social media but we’ll stay away from all that stuff and just concentrate on our business at hand.”

Said Smith: “I tell our kids social media doesn’t win any games but our kids, they’ve been playing in big-time games all season long so we won’t be phased by any of that. We’ll come out playing Rocket football and we’ll be fine.”