CARRBORO — Chapel Hill’s rushing attack powered a 49-25 blowout win over its rival Carrboro Friday.
The Tigers, who earned their first victory of the season and scored their first points of the year, rushed for six touchdowns. Junior running back Dominic Miller found the end zone four times, while seniors CJ Brooks-McMillan and Justin Harrington each logged one rushing score.
“It’s always big when you can get a win against a rival,” Chapel Hill coach Ryan Horton said. “These guys went to middle school together. So, it’s going to be trash talk. It’s going to be another level of competition. I thought in the first half, we didn’t really rise to that level. Second quarter and in the second half, we showed that we got that fight in us.”
Miller turned Chapel Hill’s 14-13 halftime lead into a two possession game in the third quarter. He rushed for three touchdowns in five game minutes, and two of those scores went for more than 30 yards. At the start of the fourth quarter, Miller broke loose for a 60-yard score to put Chapel Hill ahead 49-19.
“I went crazy,” Miller said.
Chapel Hill’s offense didn’t roar all night, though. The Tigers overcame early blunders as their first two possessions were ended by lost fumbles.
Carrboro took advantage of the Tigers’ first turnover that put the Jaguars at the opposing 27-yard line. Junior Jake Stevenson connected with junior Zachary Baumler for a 19-yard score to give Carrboro a 7-0 first quarter lead.
In the final seconds of the opening period, Chapel Hill senior Nicholas Kelly snagged an interception to prevent the Jaguars from building on their lead. The game took a pause at the end of the first quarter due to lightning.
But when the game resumed after 30 minutes, the Tigers’ offense began to wake up.
Early in the second quarter, Brooks-McMillan pieced together some big runs to bring the Tigers to the 1-yard line. Chapel Hill’s following quarterback sneak attempt was nearly spoiled by a fumble in the end zone, but Harrington jumped on the ball to give the Tigers their first score.
Carrboro responded with a 33-yard touchdown reception by sophomore Tristan McGowan, putting it back ahead 13-7. On the next possession, Chapel Hill continued to feed Brook-McMillan until he broke a 15-yard sprint to the end zone, giving the Tigers their first lead of the game right before the five-minute halftime.
“Tired of losing,” Brooks-McMillan said. “I knew what we needed to do. We came out the locker room, and I just (had) to get my guys together and rally.”
Coming out of the short halftime break, the Tigers continued to make long runs look easy. In the middle of Miller’s third quarter takeover, Harrington also powered his way through tackles on a 29-yard touchdown to put his team ahead 42-19. Chapel Hill ended the night with seven runs over 20 yards, and five came in the second half.
For the Tigers, the win over Carrboro was a much needed change in direction. Chapel Hill’s offense struggled heavily to start the year as it was shut out by both Seaforth and Orange.
“A lot of our mistakes in the first two games have been self inflicted,” Horton said.
The Tigers hope the offensive corrections it made in Week 3 carry over into its next matchup at Apex Friday at 7 p.m.
“We’ve got to have a good week of practice,” Horton said. “Some of the stuff has been out of our control. We’ve been in the gym because of heat and so forth. But we’ve got to be locked in from Monday to Thursday in order to have a good result on Friday.”
Carrboro will look to earn its first win of the year next week at East Chapel Hill. That game will also kickoff at 7 p.m.