“We won everywhere but the scoreboard,”Davie head coach Doug Illing said.

And everywhere except the turnover department. The Black Knights took control of Davie in the fourth quarter when Joel Scott intercepted a Drew Ridenhour pass and returned it 42 yards for a 14-3 advantage.

It was the third interception of the night for the injured Davie quarterback, who finished 2-for-10 for 12 yards while playing with a partially torn knee ligament.

The first INT of the night stalled a Davie drive and led to an 11-yard Bubba Rosenbaum touchdown pass, giving North Davidson a 7-0 first-quarter lead.

Davie countered with a 10-play, 65-yard drive that closed the second quarter with David Wooldridge’s 25-yard field goal as time expired.

The defenses asserted themselves over the final 24 minutes. One of three Bradford Ivey quarterback sacks forced a Black Knight punt, but Davie’s ensuing possession ended with the Scott interception return after Ridenhour was hit as he threw for his third hard-luck pick of the night.

“When you’re hitting the receiver in the hands and the ball pops up into their hands, you start scratching your head and wondering what fate is really meant to be tonight,”Illing said. “We wanted to throw the ball, but daggone, it seemed like every time we threw it …

“Drew got his arm hit and threw that one for a TD (the other way), that really stuck us in the side.”

Davie still had White to turn to, though, and the senior led the War Eagles on a 15-play, 65-yard drive that culminated in his 6-yard score and two-point conversion that cut North’s edge to 14-11 with 3:24 remaining in the game.

The War Eagle defense got just what it wanted three plays later — third down and 3 to go at the 2:26 mark. But the Black Knights went to a hard count and drew the offsides call for the first down, then ate the clock as Davie exhausted its remaining timeouts.

“Offensively we moved the ball up and down the field, and turnovers caught up with us,”said Illing, whose squad turned the ball over three times in its first five games before giving four balls to North Davidson. “They’ve got a good team and you give a team like that opportunities over and over and over you can’t win.”

Illing’s main consolation for the night was knowing that, despite suffering the first loss of the season, Davie’s real run doesn’t begin until the Oct. 8 4ACentral Piedmont Conference opener at West Forsyth. The War Eagles will look to bounce back next Friday at 3A Tri-County Conference member CentralDavidson.

“That’s all we’ve been preaching, all nonconference,”Illing said. “It hurts because when you play in front of your home crowd like this with a big rival, regardless of conference or nonconference, you want to beat them.

“Physically we outplayed them, we just didn’t execute like we need to execute.”

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