By Charlie Bergmann: Staff Writer

Four lost fumbles by Union Pines on its first five possessions of the second half helped turn a close football game into a 38-6 season-opening victory for Northwood Friday night.

In the head coaching debut for Mike Castle, the Vikings out-gained the home-standing Chargers 180 yards to 148 on the ground, but lost the battle in the air 195 yards to four. D.J. Patterson led the Viking runners with 81 yards on 18 carries.

The Viking defense forced four turnovers, with linebacker Matt Seawell receiving credit for two fumble recoveries.

The Vikings were also penalized for over 100 yards and had two touchdowns called back, including a 97-yard run from scrimmage by Kareem Ross.

“I’m going to say time and again,” Castle said afterward, “this is a wonderful, great group of kids that have not learned to overcome adversity. It’s going to take patience on their behalf and patience on mine and the coaching staff to teach them the right things.

“A win is going to be tremendous for these kids — it’s going to do wonders. I’m proud of these kids and I hope you put that in print.”

The Vikings have gone 1-21 over the last two seasons.

Starting with a fumble recovery by Seawell on the first Charger play from scrimmage, the Vikings took it to the home team physically throughout the first half.

But late in the first quarter, the Chargers’ Kenny Allen burst up the middle for a 10-yard touchdown after some nice faking by quarterback Dean Hatami. The conversion kick made it 7-0.

On the first series of the second quarter, a fumble recovery by Patrick Welton gave the Vikings a start from the Charger 48. Ross took it the distance on the first play, but it was called back by a holding penalty.

The Vikings eventually made it to the Charger 11-yard line before giving up the ball on downs.

A 40-yard touchdown pass from Hatami to Zach O’Dell had the Vikings trailing 15-0 before they got on the board with a 72-yard drive in nine plays. The big gainers were a 20-yard run by Anthony Irvin on a draw play and a 38-yard run up the middle by Patterson to the Charger five-yard-line.

The Vikings had no time outs left and there were 22 seconds left in the half when quarterback Richard Fowler and the offensive unit showed some poise, scoring from the one. A fumbled snap on the conversion attempt left the visitors trailing 15-6.

In spite of the lead, Charger coach Bill Hall was not pleased with his team’s first half performance. The Vikings ran 31 plays to 19 for the home team.

“Without seeing the stats,” Hall said, “they probably had the ball for 18 minutes. This early in the year, as hot as it is, our defense got tired. Give them credit, they had a great game plan and kept us off-balance in the first half.”

Castle told his team at halftime that it had put itself in a position to win. The Vikings would get the ball first after the intermission.

Patterson returned the kickoff to the 30, but a penalty set the Vikings back 10 yards. A Fowler fumble on the first play gave the ball back to the Chargers. The defense held and the offense went back on the field, starting this time from its own 20.

Patterson went off tackle for 17 and 14 yards on the first two plays behind left guard Pete Peterson and left tackle Bernard McIver. Four plays later, a fumble by Irvin gave the ball back to the Chargers on their own 35. Soon Allen was in the end zone. Coupled with the extra-point kick the Chargers led 22-6.

With Fowler and freshman Brandon Verbal sharing the quarterbacking duties, the Vikings fumbled the ball away on five of seven second-half possessions. They trailed 29-6 early in the fourth period when Chad Norris intercepted a Charger pass near his own goal line. On the second play from the Viking three, Ross took off on his miraculous run.

The senior appeared to be stopped cold fighting for a first down near the 10-yard line when he broke free and won the almost 100-yard dash with room to spare. It was all for naught when a needless block in the back near midfield brought the ball all the way back to the Viking 38-yard line. They would eventually have to punt the ball away.

“He kept fighting,” Castle said of the effort by Ross, “that’s what we want to see.”

The Viking coach talked about what he felt was the pivotal point of the game.

“It’s 15-6 at halftime and you’ve physically worn the other team out,” he said. “You open the second half and you have the ball. You would like to carry it over into the second half, but you turn it over on the first play. You’ve got to step on the accelerator and we didn’t. They (Chargers) just sucked it up and got it done. “

Allen was the leading rusher for the Chargers with 107 yards in 14 carries. Hatami completed nine of 12 passes for 138 yards. Tim Courtney caught four passes for 109 yards.

The Viking quarterbacks threw only four passes in the game, completing one for four yards. Ross ended up with 79 yards on nine carries and Irvin picked up 56 in nine attempts.

This Friday at 7:30 p.m. the Vikings entertain Pinecrest in the fifth edition of the Battle of the Pines. The jayvee contest will be played on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Pinecrest.

Hall, a Pinecrest graduate, thought his team’s depth and size wore the Vikings down in the second half.

“He (Castle) has something to look forward to,” Hall said. “He’s got numbers and Union Pines hasn’t had numbers in many years. They have some young talent there and the running backs looked really good. We ended up having to put eight men in the box and that ended up working for us. They have some better days ahead.”

Union Pines 0 6 0 0 — 6

Northwood 7 8 14 9 — 38

Scoring: (N) Allen 10-run (Robinson kick); (N) O’Dell 40-pass from Hatami (Beau run); (UP) Fowler 1-run (pass failed); (N) Allen 4-run (Robinson kick); (N) Sturdivant 2-run (Robinson kick); (N) Courtney 57-pass from Green (Robinson kick); (N) safety.

Team stats: First downs – (UP) 9 (N) 15; Rushing – (UP) 50-180 (N) 32-148; Passing – (UP) 1-4, 4 yds. (N) 10-14, 195 yds.; Penalties – (UP) 13-110 (N) 7-45; Punts – (UP) 6-29.6 (N) 2-32; Fumbles – (UP) 11-5 (N) 4-3.