FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — North Hall came into its scrimmage with Flowery Branch looking to fine-tune. The Falcons were looking for answers. Both accomplished those goals on Thursday at Falcons Field.
North Hall took an eventual 42-21 win over Flowery Branch in their only warm-ups before the 2025 season begins next week.
But the two varsity squads battled down to the final seconds in the first half before North Hall led 21-14 heading into the break. From there, the second units took over in the second half.
Big plays on both sides highlighted what was a fairly well-played scrimmage by most standards. Only three penalties were called in the first half -- two on personal fouls.
“We made some big plays, gave up some big plays on defense,” first-year Flowery Branch coach Michael Perry said. “The guys (played) hard. That's all you can ask for.”
But in the opening varsity half, after Flowery Branch was forced to punt on its opening drive, North Hall scored first on its first possession, getting a long pass from Alex Schlieman to Cole Cable on third down for a 7-0 lead.
After trading punts, Branch tied it up on its third possession on a pass from Brett Sturm to Eli Poole to even the score at seven on the first play of the second quarter.
North Hall, on its next play, appeared to reclaim the lead on a long pass from Schlieman to Cable, but it was called back on a penalty. However, they overcame that and went on to drive the length of the field to score on a short run by Parker Carlton for a 14-7 lead in the second quarter.
The Falcons answered that when Sturm connected with Brooks Recinella on a deep pass to the North Hall 1. Sturm capped the drive with a 3-yard TD run to tie the game at 14.
But the Trojans took a 21-14 lead into the half when Schlieman hit Ty Kemp on a 10-yard TD pass with 3 seconds left in the half.
“We had our opportunities to do some stuff, and we did. Offensively, we looked pretty decent,” North Hall’s Sean Pender said. “We had a couple of miscues here and there, but it's a scrimmage, and you know that's going to happen.”
It was a good showing for the Falcons, who are looking to get the program back on track while North Hall returned 19 starters from last year’s Class 3A quarterfinal team. The Trojans' offense was stopped just once in the first half. However, the offense certainly answered many of the questions they had before Thursday.
“North Hall is a very good team. Pender does an exceptional job offensively,” Perry said. “We’ve got to run the ball a lot better than we did. But really proud of the job Brett did, and our outside receivers.”
For a scrimmage game, Pender said it was better than most.
“I think this was a great scrimmage game. I think we and Flowery Branch got after each other pretty good,” he said. “I think we both did some good things and probably have some stuff we both need to work on.”
Branch will open the season next week on the road against Class 5A Jackson County.
North Hall is off next week before opening its season on Aug. 22 at The Brickyard against Wesleyan.
