Bright night for Souhegan: JJ Bright's 457-yard rushing performance wasn't a state record, but it's up there
Oct. 9—There were at least two statistical oddities in the Souhegan High School football team's 41-22 victory at Hanover on Friday night:
1. All 63 points were scored in the second half.
2. Souhegan running back JJ Bright ran for 457 yards and five touchdowns on 27 carries — one of the best rushing performances in NHIAA history.
"We're not really big on stats — we don't think about that stuff — but that's some Bo Jackson Tecmo Super Bowl stuff right there," Souhegan coach Robin Bowkett said. "It was unreal. We ran a couple different plays for the early touchdowns, and then one formation was giving them some fits and all we had to do was get a hat on a hat. Nobody was catching JJ."
And the inability to score in the first half?
"Hanover gave us a defense maybe that we had talked about, but maybe we didn't fully prepare for, and it gave us some issues," Bowkett said. "Really it was me not just taking what the defense gives us and being OK with the 6- and 7-yard gains instead of the big gains. We were moving the ball, but not at the pace we are generally accustomed to."
Bright, a senior, picked up 329 yards on his five TD runs, which covered 80, 67, 60, 55 and 67 yards.
"We played like a typical New Hampshire team and just ran the ball over and over again," Bright said. "We're a spread team and usually it's a good mix of both (run and pass). Hanover did a good job of adjusting to the pass. We had to figure out what worked, and that was running the ball.
"Most of the TD runs were kind of like a footrace. We were doing a really good job of blocking up front and our receivers were blocking really nicely, which made my job easier."
As good as Bright's performance was, it is not an NHIAA record for rushing yards in a game. That record is held by former Manchester Central running back Jesiah Wade, who ran for 556 yards and six touchdowns on 31 carries during a 2013 game against Merrimack. According to MaxPreps, a web site that covers high school sports, Wade's 556 rushing yards ranks 25th all-time nationally.
Wade, who began his high school career at Campbell, ran for 319 yards in the first half and had six runs of 40 yards or more in Central's 56-35 victory.
The national record for rushing yards in a game is held by Journey Brown of Meadville, Pennsylvania, who ran for 722 yards in a game during the 2015 season. Brown went on to play at Penn State.
Friday's victory raised Souhegan's record to 5-1 overall and 5-0 in Division II. Hanover, which fell to 3-2 in Division II, held its opponents to 42 points in its four previous games.
"We made some adjustments at halftime and we had to switch up one of our blocking assignments," Bright said. "After we did that, some of our run plays were pretty open.
"I knew when the game was over it was going to be a high rushing-yard game for me, but I had no idea it was going to be as high as it was. The next morning I got a text from Coach Bowkett and I was kind of in shock."
