Newberry shuts out UNC Pembroke for third straight win

PEMBROKE, N.C. – Another suffocating defensive effort coupled with Markell Castle’s continued ascent up the record books led Newberry to a 20-0 win over UNC Pembroke Saturday night.

The Wolves (3-2) allowed UNC Pembroke (1-2) just 213 yards of total offense, marking the fourth consecutive game and 21st time in the 51 games since the start of the 2014 season that Newberry has held an opponent to 250 yards or fewer.

The Braves managed a season-low 157 yards through the air on 21-for-37 passing and mustered 56 yards on the ground on 22 carries. Newberry has now given up just 256 yards on the ground over its previous four games, an average of 64 yards per contest even after being skewed by the 162 yards given up to Carson-Newman’s split-back veer option attack.

“We were preparing for a 99 percent run, one percent pass game last week and we got our kids jacked up about that,” remarked head coach Todd Knight. “Going into this game it was almost the opposite of it. UNC Pembroke’s strength is throwing the football and our kids flipped the switch. I give them a lot of credit for going from one extreme to the other.”

UNC Pembroke was shut out for the first time since the program’s inaugural season in 2007, a span of 108 games. The Braves had never scored less than six points at Grace P. Johnson Stadium, including in Newberry’s 13-6 win in the Wolves’ last trip to Robeson County.

While the UNC Pembroke offense struggled to piece drives together, Austin Barnes picked up difficult yards for the Wolves to open lanes in the passing game. He finished with 113 yards on 19 carries, surpassing the century mark for the fourth time in his career.

Castle caught four passes for 55 yards and a pair of scores, one early in the third quarter and a dagger in the fourth. He passed Brandon Bostick for third all-time in both receiving yards and receiving touchdowns in the Newberry record book, now standing at 1,978 yards and 20 scores for his career.

The Wolves had entered halftime with a 3-0 lead but got a spark from Bobby Irby less than two minutes into the second half. The sophomore wide receiver fielded a punt on the far side near the numbers, slipped out of a tackle, and raced through the center of the field for 47 yards down to the Braves’ 25-yard line, marking Newberry’s fifth-longest punt return of the 21st century.

Newberry needed five plays to find the end zone, with Harris lobbing a pass to a diving Castle in the back corner of the ned zone to stretch the lead to 10 points.

A six-point swing occurred on each team’s next possession, with UNC Pembroke pushing a 32-yard field goal attempt wide right before the Wolves marched 70 yards in 10 plays, capping the drive with a 26-yard Shea Rodgers field goal to make the score 13-0.

Newberry’s defense forced a three-and-out, but a rushing attempt by the Braves’ punter on fourth-and-3 yielded a five-yard loss. Three plays later, Castle caught Harris’ pass backpedaling near the pylon and twisted across the goal line for a 27-yard score to put the game out of reach.

Anthony Blue led the Wolves with a career-high eight tackles. Keito Jordon had a pair of tackles for loss among his five stops, placing him two TFL’s outside the top 10 in school history. Baylen English picked off his first career pass and finished with three tackles.

Jamarcus Henderson had a relatively quiet evening with the Braves content to run their offense to the opposite side of the field. He finished with two tackles but counted a record-breaking sack among them—he now stands alone atop the Newberry record books in both sacks (26.5) and tackles for loss (52.5) in a career.

“Jamarcus is just a pass rushing machine,” said Knight. “He goes wide open every play. He’s the real deal.”

Harris finished 9-for-15 through the air for 104 yards and the two scoring connections to Castle. He also added 18 yards on the ground, eclipsed by only Barnes’s 113 and Greg Ruff’s 37.

“I saw a lot of poise [in Harris],” Knight said, “especially for a redshirt freshman who, up until this point, hasn’t show the amount of maturity that we’re looking for in the quarterback spot. But he came in tonight when we really needed him. I could see a kid maturing right before my eyes tonight.”

The Braves were led by Josh Jones’s 147 yards on 18-for-31 passing. Josh Sheridan paced the Braves’ ground game with 33 yards on eight carries.

Newberry returns home for a critical South Atlantic Conference battle against a resurgent Lenoir-Rhyne program. The game pits the lone remaining SAC teams with an unblemished conference record.

“Next week is going to be a heckuva battle,” Knight stated. “The best thing about it is that we’re going to be back in ‘The Berry.’ I know the crowd’s going to be huge and our kids play really well at home when it’s a big game, and I don’t know if you’re going to find one bigger than the one we’re going to see next week.”