By PATRICK CASEY
Johnathan Ortner tossed four touchdown passes and threw for 251 yards as South Walton defeated North Bay Haven 48-18 on Friday night in a game played at Bozeman School in northern Bay County.
The Seahawks, who improved to 2-0 with the victory, saw Ortner hit Jireh Crittenden and Alex Smith with a pair of touchdown strikes each while the senior quarterback added a 4-yard scoring run of his own late in the second quarter to propel the visiting team to a 20-6 halftime lead.
South Walton blew the game open in the second half as they scored on all four of their possessions after intermission. Smith caught touchdown passes of 14 and seven yards while running back Kyle Lenoir scored on runs of one and 16 yards.
The Seahawks had five drives that moved more than 60 yards for touchdowns and they pounded away with a running game that totaled 272 yards on the night.
Joe Ledo-Massey led the ground attack with 75 yards while Harrison Schaffer added 61 yards.
North Bay Haven got a 56-yard touchdown run from Heath Dennison with 5:09 to go in the third quarter to trim the deficit to 27-12 but that was one of the few bright spots in the running game the Bucs had on the night. The Bay County squad managed only 74 yards on 31 carries the rest of the game with South Walton posting seven tackles for a loss against the rush.
Smith led the Seahawks with 113 yards on 11 receptions from Ortner. The Seahawks had 32 first downs in the game as they threw short successfully while the running game pounded away.
South Walton will travel to DeFuniak Springs on Friday night to face county rival Walton(2-0) with kickoff set for 7 p.m. at Everette Yates Memorial Stadium.
