The Durham Hillside quarterback shook off a rough first half and guided his team to two second-half touchdown drives, throwing for a touchdown and running for another, as the Hornets scratched out a hard-fought 14-9 PAC Six road win over Durham Jordan at Currie Stadium.

"I knew I had to man-up," said Gattis, who finished with 183 yards passing and 13 yards rushing. "I have responsibilities, and at first I wasn't taking care of them. In the second half, I started taking care of my responsibilities as a quarterback."

The loss was the second straight for Jordan, both in conference play, after the team started the season 4-0.

The game was a defensive slugfest in the first half, with the only points coming late in the second quarter when Jordan quarterback Phillip Love connected with sophomore wide receiver T.J. Thorpe for a long pass play, then ran it in from 1-yard out to put the Falcons up 6-0.

Steven Yun missed on the extra-point attempt.

Jordan looked to add to the lead, going for it on fourth-and-inches from their own 42-yard line to start the third quarter, but the Hornets swarmed on Love's quarterback sneak to stop him for a short loss.

The Hornets (4-1-1, 1-1) quickly took advantage. Gattis was 4-for-4 on a 5-play, 42-yard drive that culminated in a 26-yard touchdown toss to Vad Lee.

"He was a leader," Hillside coach Ray Harrison said of his quarterback. "He saw some things that he wasn't seeing in the first few weeks and called some audibles out of some plays and make some big plays for us."

The Falcons (4-2-0, 0-2) took the lead back on a 21-yard field goal by Yun, but Gattis guided his team on a 10-play, 69-yard drive, running it in the last 10 yards himself with 2:22 left to put the Hornets up 14-9.

Jordan had one last drive, penetrating as far as the Hillside 38-yard line, but missed on a fourth-down pass with under a minute left.

J.R. Rhodes, who made a verbal commitment this week to play for North Carolina next season, got hurt in the first quarter but came back to rush for 99 yards on 22 carries.

"Big win," Harrison said. "I've been coach here five years, and this is the first time that I've won in this stadium. We didn't want to go 0-2, so I told our guys to just keep fighting. We figured these first two weeks would make or break us for conference."

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