FERRIDAY — Huntington’s ground game carried the Hounds through the first round of MPSA Class A playoffs Friday.

The Hounds defeated Newton County Academy 44-24 at Hounds Field on the strong legs of Jeremy Randall and Kevin Brown.

Brown carried 19 times for 92 yards in the game with two touchdowns, including a 59-yarder in the fourth quarter.

“We haven’t run him a whole lot throughout the year, but we ran him a whole lot more tonight,” said coach Chad Harkins. “We kind of used Jeremy as a decoy tonight a lot of times, and it worked out well for us.”

Randall had his own success, rushing 19 times for 184 yards and a 4-yard score.

But while Randall led the offense, Brown was the workhorse.

“I know they (the Generals) throw the ball a lot, and that’s not been the strongest part of our defense, and we wanted to keep the ball out of their hands,” Harkins said. “I know that Kevin’s good at picking up those 4-yard gains and what not, and that’s what we needed.”

Harkins was indeed right about his team’s pass coverage. Generals quarterback Rob Roberts completed 10-of-20 passes for 160 yards.

Huntington allowed some long throws toward the end of the game, including a 36-yarder on fourth-down-and-17 and a 26-yard catch on second-down-and-20, both in the fourth quarter.

But those big plays did not matter in the end, as the Hounds’ offense was in control for the entire game.

“I think that’s the deal that we’ve been hoping for, that they’ll come together and play together,” Harkins said. “We had one phase of our game bubbling a little but, we had some letdowns defensively, but our offense kept coming through every time.

“Hopefully next time if our offense is bubbling our defense will step up. That’s the characteristic of a pretty good team.”

Josh Lee rushed 10 times for 71 yards for the Hounds, but some of his biggest plays were on defense.

He caused a fumble on a fourth-down-and-40 play, knocking the ball out of Roberts’ hands and running it back 35 yards for a score with 4:35 left in the game, solidifying the win.

He also hit another Newton County player so hard he lost his helmet.

“I just can’t say enough about the way he played on both sides of the ball tonight,” Harkins said. “He was just all over the place on defense, making big runs, and on offense doing the same thing. When those guys are getting the big runs on offense he’s blocking for them, and then it was his turn.”

Brelin Cage also had a big play for the Hounds.

The 305-pounder recovered an onside kick attempt by Newton County and ran it 23 yards, leading to a 9-yard score by Lee.

“He always wants to run the ball. We let him run it in the homecoming game,” Harkins said. “When they got it to him, I knew he was going to try to run it, and it worked out.”

The Hounds struck first on the initial drive of the game, with Brown running it in 2 yards after a 60-yard, 5:05 drive.