Keith Maloof won his 225th game on Friday night, but it was one of the most bittersweet victories of his long and illustrious career.
It came at the expense of his son.
Maloof, the winningest coach in Gwinnett County football, led the Norcross Blue Devils to a 31-10 win over the Lanier Longhorns, who are coached by his son, Tyler, at The Ranch in Sugar Hill.
It was the first meeting between father and son coaches since McEachern, behind Jimmy Dorsey, defeated Hiram, coached by Andy Dorsey, in 2006.
But as the game progressed it had more wrinkles than advertised. The game was delayed by a thunderstorm for more than two hours. Then, with 10:38 left to play, the stadium lights were shut off at midnight, causing another 20-minute delay. The contest finally ended around 12:30 a.m.
“Our kids, they’re fighting like crazy because they want their coach to win and his kids are fighting like crazy because they want it for him,” Keith Maloof said. “Our kids want it for our program. You know, we’re a very prideful school, just like he is here and that added emotion to it.”
The second half particularly featured more than a handful of personal foul calls, as play got rather chippy at times.
“I’m proud of my guys, but we’ve got to fix a lot of the discipline stuff if we’re going to be really good at the end of the year,” Maloof said. “(Lanier) is going to do some good things this year and he needed a game like this before he goes into region play because he’s got (No. 1) Milton and (No. 2) Gainesville.”
Norcross was led in the first half by quarterback Dillon Mohammed and in the second half by the running of Kobe Robinson. Mohammed threw for 196 of his 271 yards and finished 17-for-22 with two touchdowns. Robinson carried 23 times for 113 yards – 94 of them in the second half. Jashaun Clarke caught nine passes for 142 yards and one touchdown.
“We’ve got to execute better,” Maloof said. “Dillon’s got to do some better things in the offense, getting rid of the ball. He got a couple of nice touchdown passes and overall I’m proud of these guys.”
Lanier quarterback Ben Vandenbos completed 4 of 9 passes for 96 yards, but was sacked seven times. Tojuan Peyton Jr. ran 22 times for 107 yards and caught a 75-yard pass. Peyton also appeared to have returned a kickoff for a touchdown, but it was called back because of a penalty.
The two-hour delay, which sent both bands and 95% of the crowd scurrying home, had little effect on the Blue Devils. Maloof said the players just hung out in the locker room, eeating popcorn and having fun.
“That’s all you can do,” he said. “You can’t be focused in on it, but we got them back ready. They came out in the second half and did what needed to be done.”
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