By Alicia Couch Payne
This past Friday night, September 28th the Johnson Knights were guests at Buford’s Tom Riden stadium.This game was not only the Wolves region 8-AAAAA opener but it was also their Homecoming night. The Wolves came out to win and it showed on all sides of the ball with a 49-0 victory.
In the first quarter, sophomore quarterback Aaron McLaughlin threw three touchdown passes. Julien Lewis, Dom Maggio, and Austin Turner each caught the ball and scored touchdowns. Kicker Hayden Olsen never missed a point.
Texas commit Derrian Brown scored a touchdown for Buford in the second quarter. McLaughlin threw another touchdown pass this time to Drew Gutierrez. Olsen gets the extra point on both touchdowns. Buford went into halftime with a 35-0 lead.
The third quarter scoring started when Zane Harkness ran the ball for 9 yards for a touchdown. The Wolves secondary was called in by this time but didn’t disappoint as Seth Auer connected with Tommy Beuglas for a touchdown pass. Once again, Olsen never missed a point. No points were scored in the 4th quarter.
McLaughlin managed to throw for 9 of 12 attempts for a total of 175 yards after only playing until midway in the 3rd quarter. He had one interception in the first quarter but Buford had a fumble recovery on Johnson’s next possession.
Buford’s defense did the job. They limited Johnson to just 97 yards the entire game. The Buford defense kept Johnson off the board.
The Wolves (4-2, 1-0 region 8-AAAAA) will be on the road for their next opponent this Friday night. Buford will take on another region opponent, Cedar Shoals.
