HUNTERSVILLE — A.L. Brown won 42-20 at North Meck on Friday, a convincing road victory in their MECKA opener that gives them a 5-0 start for the first time since 2006.
Damon Johnson ran for two touchdowns and threw his seventh and eighth TD passes of the season.
Sandon McCoy had a huge game, rushing 23 times for 138 yards and three TDs in torrential rain, but the Wonders’ excitement was tempered somewhat by the fact that they played without McCoy’s running mate — standout H-back Jayln Cagle.
Coach Mike Newsome explained Cagle injured a hamstring at practice on Tuesday. Cagle wanted to play against North Meck, but with Vance looming next on the schedule, Newsome made the decision to rest Cagle. It’s hoped that he will be close to full speed against powerful Vance.
“We’re really thin at spots, and if we lose the wrong people, we can go from really good to really average in a hurry,” Newsome said. “We lost Jayln’s backup in the Concord game, so we’re really thin at his position. You have a kid like, who is so important to our offense, get hurt on a Tuesday and it’s tough to adjust quickly. But we had several kids (Kaseim Black, Steven Howie, Shymere Scott) come over from the defense to fill in. They didn’t have any overwhelming stats, but they really helped us.”
With Cagle out, McCoy got even more carries than usual and the muscular workhorse bulldozed defenders on a wet field.
“Sandon just shouldered the load,” Newsome said. “He made punishing runs. He just ran over three or four people at a time.”
The Wonders had things their way early. QB Damon Johnson fired a 29-yard scoring pass to Lewis Harris for a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
The Wonders went up 21-0 with two TDs in less than a minute in the second quarter. Johnson broke a 22-yard run to score. After a fumble recovery by the Wonders’ defense, McCoy broke his first TD run from the North Meck 22.
It appeared the Wonders would go to halftime up 21-0, but they lost some focus in the last 30 seconds or so, and North Meck got within 21-8 at the break.
North Meck (4-2, 0-1) made things interesting in the third quarter.
“They’ve got a good team, they’ve been playing really well and they made plays,” Newsome said.
With the Wonders leading 21-14, Johnson broke a 19-yard scoring run to push the lead back to two touchdowns, but North Meck’s De’Montrez Burroughs returned the kickoff 93 yards, and the Vikings trailed 28-20 and were charging.
“That was a key point in the game, and they had some momentum, but our kids responded really well,” Newsome said. “They had some mistakes on punts that helped us — the punter’s knee touched the ground once and they had one punt off the side of the foot for negative yards.”
The Wonders pounded away with McCoy as the clock churned, and the defense stiffened the rest of the way, forcing turnovers and creating short fields for the offense.
McCoy scored twice as the Wonders moved out of danger, once on a run and once on a pass reception.
“It’s a good win, but we got more kids banged up tonight,” Newsome said. “It’s football, and that’s going to happen, but like I said, we’re thin. It’s a great to be 5-0, but you’re only as good as your next game, and we’ve got Vance coming up next.”

A.L. Brown 7 14 21 0 — 42
North Meck 0 8 12 0 — 20