It was almost lost in East Hamilton’s celebration — the Hurricanes’ first playoff victory and their first 10-win season — but Blake Noorbergen has all of a sudden developed a Midas football touch.
East Hamilton is moving on in Tennessee’s Class 4A playoffs following a running-clock 38-0 victory over visiting Marshall County.
Noorbergen touched the ball for the second and third times in his senior season and scored each time, once on a 69-yard pass from Hunter Moore and again on an 8-yard run, the latter starting the running clock with 9:05 to go in the third quarter.
One of the area’s top sprinters, Noorbergen got his first touch in the previous week’s win over Howard and scored on a 40-yard pass play, so the 6-foot, 175-pounder now has three touches and three TDs.
The Hurricanes might not have needed him, but he and reserve running backs Lamond Greer and Matt Milita stepped up and filled a potential offensive gap after Logan Jackson went down with an apparent knee injury. Jackson, the team’s backfield workhorse and one of the area’s rushing leaders, left the field under his own power but returned after halftime sporting a leg immobilizer.