The North Atlanta Warriors faced off against the Northview Titans last Friday night in front of a neoned-out student section on their homecoming weekend. The game was even televised as the WSB-TV Game of the Week, and so the pressure was on for North Atlanta to deliver a win. North Atlanta found themselves down early in the game, surrendering two touchdowns to Northview in the first half to make it a 14 to 0 second quarter deficit for North Atlanta. The Warriors were not done yet, though, and a Wiley Hartley touchdown pass to Tre’ Mason would cut the deficit to seven points. A stand from the Warriors defense would give them the ball right back, and then T.K. Mack took another pass from Hartley 59 yards to the house to tie the game at 14-14 going into the half.

At halftime, North Atlanta made it known that they could not be shown up like this on their own homecoming. “We had a conversation at halftime where we basically said we need to bulk up. We can’t let them do this to us on our homecoming game,” said junior linebacker Armari Hodges. 

The Warriors received the ball after halftime, and they would take advantage of this by scoring another touchdown and making it 21 unanswered points from their offense to take a 21 to 14 lead. The lead was short lived, as Northview would come back with a touchdown of their own to tie it back up at 21. When North Atlanta got the ball back, they drove down the field again and another Mack touchdown would give them the lead. Mack would end his day off with 120 rushing yards and three touchdowns, and his 59 yard receiving score. The defense that had struggled all day long would soon start to shut Northview down. “Once the crowd started to show up in the second half, we just started to feed off their energy and play more focused, ” said Hodges. 

When Northview couldn’t get anything going, the Warriors would start to take advantage on offense. Hartley and Mack would add on two more touchdowns to extend their lead to 42-21, and a garbage time Northview touchdown would make it a 42 to 28 North Atlanta. While it wasn’t always pretty at times, the Warriors stepped up when it mattered to pick up a huge homecoming win. Their record now stands at 4-1, and there is plenty of optimism to be had about what comes next for their season.