Corinth Holders breaks away from Triton football

It certainly wasn’t a pretty win for Corinth Holders.

For a lot of the night, the Pirates did a lot of turning the ball over and kept underdog Triton in the game.

But the hosts cleaned things up in the second half to break away, as Kaelin O’Neal ran for three touchdowns and Jordan Neal for two in a 40-14 homecoming victory.

The convincing win improved the Pirates to 7-1, 2-0 in Two Rivers 3A play while Triton fell to 1-7 and 0-2.

Shamarko Wortham recovered a fumble in the end zone for the Pirates’ other score.

Byron Massey and Demarius Staton scored the Hawks’ touchdowns.

The Pirates, who tied for the conference title last season, had beaten Triton 41-22 last year on the road in the teams’ first meeting.

“Turnovers and penalties and offensive mistakes killed us,” Corinth Holders coach Bubba Williams said. “Defensively we played about as good as we could barring a couple of missed coverages. We can’t turn the ball over like that against the stronger teams in the conference and be successful.”

Turning point

The Pirates’ Jordan Neal scored the second of his team’s two third-quarter touchdowns for a 27-7 lead to put the Hawks in a deep hole.

They said it

“We had some things going wrong,” Triton coach Ben Penny said. “What really hurt us was not being able to capitalize on their turnovers. We had a little momentum going in the first half and weren’t able to get things done. We challenged our guys to put together a complete 48 minutes and that’s been tough for us.”

Three who mattered

Kaelin O’Neal, Corinth Holders: The senior quarterback rushed for 77 yards and three touchdowns.

“We learned that we can come back from a lot of mistakes and still dominate,” O’Neal said. “We just had to get momentum going our way, and once we did that we were rolling.”

Jordan Neal, Corinth Holders: The senior running back rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns.

Shamarko Wortham, Corinth Holders: The senior defensive end recovered a fumble on a bad punt snap for Triton to give the Pirates a 13-7 lead.

“I just saw the ball on the ground in the end zone and went as hard as I could,” Wortham said. “I think we learned a lot tonight, but we have to work harder at practice and focus more.”

By the numbers

107: Total rushing yards for Triton on 49 carries.

114: Jordan Neal’s rushing yardage for Corinth Holders.

131: Kaelin O’Neal’s total offense for the Pirates.

134: Howard Watson’s rushing yardage for the Pirates.

301: Total rushing yards on 43 carries for the Pirates.

Looking ahead

Corinth Holders will visit Western Harnett on Thursday night, while Triton visits South Johnston.

This story was originally published October 17, 2015 at 12:28 AM with the headline "Corinth Holders breaks away from Triton football."