Top-ranked Northside cruises past Richmond Academy

WARNER ROBINS -- The No. 1 Northside Eagles took a healthy lead to halftime and were able to rest their starters after the break as they cruised to a 33-7 GHSA Region 2-AAAAA victory over Richmond Academy to stay unbeaten Friday.

“I’m thankful that we got to play a lot of people,” said Northside head coach Kevin Kinsler, whose team improved to 6-0 overall and 5-0 in the region. “I’m not sure we executed real well at times, and their kids played hard. I thought we did some good things in the first half there executing some things in the passing game, especially with the way they were moving around so much up front.”

Northside’s offensive starters scored touchdowns on five of their six possessions.

Tailback Desean Dinkins had 91 yards on 14 carries, while quarterback Tobias Oliver added 41 yards on eight attempts.

Oliver also had a big night throwing the ball. The junior completed 14-of-16 for 198 yards, including a 26-yard strike for a touchdown to Jaylan Sandifer to put the Eagles ahead 33-7 right before the half.

“He threw the ball well,” Kinsler said. “We were working on some things, and he made some good decisions. There were maybe a couple of balls where I thought he could’ve thrown before he got out of there, but for the most part, I thought he threw well, and we caught the ball well.”

Richmond Academy’s lone touchdown came on a tipped pass that deflected off of a Northside defensive back in the second quarter. It was the fourth time in five games that Northside has held an opponent to a single score this season.

“We did a pretty good job up front,” Kinsler said. “They abandoned the run early, threw it up a lot and completed a lot of balls underneath us there.”

Northside can now begin preparations for its annual rivalry showdown with Warner Robins. The Demons narrowly escaped a road game at Evans on Friday, pulling out a 21-19 win.

The Eagles and Demons are both off next week.

“I know our kids are looking forward to it, and they’re probably going to come back with a little bit more focus and some more intensity in the practices,” Kinsler said. “We’re going to try and get a couple of people back healthy, and we need to focus on some fundamental things that we didn’t do well (Friday).”

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 11:46 PM with the headline "Top-ranked Northside cruises past Richmond Academy ."