The Carroll Chargers defeated the Northrop Bruins 42-34 on Friday night to advance to next week’s Sectional Championship game against Snider at Spuller Stadium.

After capitalizing early on a Blake Eley interception that led to a nine yard touchdown run from Cam Shank, the Carroll defense would force another turnover, this time a fumble recovered by Micah Fretz at the Charger 44-yard line.

The Chargers however had two turnovers early in the game that allowed Northrop to stay in the game.

“Two turnovers in the red zone where we could have scoring opportunities and we don’t capitalize on that” said Head Coach Doug Dinan.

After being down 7-0 after the first quarter, the Bruins came out hot to start the second quarter. The Bruins Antwone Washington put his team on the board to start the quarter but it was Bruins Running Back Keishon Edwards who took center stage and commanded attention from the Charger defense. Edwards running the ball 41 yards to the end zone to give his team a 12-7 lead which grew to 13 after Tarik Bajoric sent the PAT through the uprights.

Then following an answer from the Chargers to regain the lead, Edwards came back onto the field and continued to punish the Chargers, this time scoring on a 38 yard run.

Now down 14-20 and with time running out in the first half, the Chargers marched down the field with authority and Quarterback Jack Miguel tossed a 15 yard pass to Layton Mitchell in the end zone to give the Chargers a 21-20 lead, and momentum, going into halftime.

“We played hard in the first half but… we didn’t capitalize on situations, we were hurting ourselves and we also talked about this being a do or die situation, you either win or you pack it up on Monday and you’re done” was Dinan’s message to the team during halftime.

And that message sure seemed to resonate with the Chargers.

The Chargers came out of halftime and on the opening kickoff, Shank returned the ball 80 yards for a touchdown and followed it up with another Jack Miguel touchdown pass to Layton Mitchell just a few minutes later to take a 15 point lead over the Bruins.

Backed up with sound defensive play, the Chargers continued to build their lead with Shank adding a fourth touchdown to his night, giving the Chargers a 41-20 lead with just six minutes to play.

However, Northrop would keep the game interesting with two late touchdowns, from Edwards and Jeremiah Green respectively, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to overcome the Chargers’ second half onslaught.

“Our kids were resilient, they want to play they want to continue to play, they want to put themselves in a situation to play for a sectional championship” said Dinan.