Newton Academy’s Lincoln Jordan pushes past a Carroll Academy defender Friday night.

DECATUR — At times, it’s a game of inches. At other times, it’s a game of busted plays and big hits. 

When an undefeated Carroll Academy faced off against the winless Newton County Academy Generals Friday, it was a mental game. 

The visiting Rebels came away with a 25-6 win to move to 4-0 while the Generals dropped to 0-4.

The Generals appeared mentally prepared and poised to break the Rebel winning streak before a large home crowd by forcing the Rebels out of their signature running game. 

General running back Lincoln Jordan found an opening at the line of scrimmage and then beat a host of Rebel pursuers for a 95-yard touchdown run with 6:34 left in the first quarter to give them a 6-0 lead.

Shortly before the half, Rebel quarterback Morgan Mims fumbled the snap on fourth-and-long near his own 33-yard line. Kemp Alderman chased him down for a huge loss, giving the Generals’ their best field position of the first half near the 20-yard line.

“That’s a good football team,” Carroll head coach Bo Milton said of the Generals. “They’re a lot better than what their record indicates. They came after us and took away what we like to do. That first half we made some mistakes. We came back and made some adjustments and were able to get back to what we do in the second half.”

The adjustments showed up on the first series of the opening drive of the second half when the Rebels capped off a 13-play, 64-yard drive on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Mims to Reese Fulton with 4:55 left in the third quarter.

After a 10-yard holding penalty, Sims chose to take the ball into the end zone on a 35-yard run giving the Rebels their first lead of the game, 12-6 with 10:54 left in the final quarter. 

“We started out so strong and then we just couldn’t go,” NCA coach Rob Roberts said. “We couldn’t block like we needed. We didn’t hit the holes like we were supposed to, but we were still in it. At that time we had the momentum on the that fourth-and-two. I take the blame for that one. We went for it and lost it and think we just got down from there.”

Mims added a rushing touchdown with 5:04 left in the game to make the score was 18-6. He broke away for a 58-yard touchdown run with 2:28 left in the game to make the final score 25-6.

The Generals will spend the upcoming week preparing for the short road trip to Madden where they will take on 3-1 Leake Academy.