North Medford ran into a bit of a buzzsaw Friday night in a Week 2 contest against Sprague in Salem, with the host Olympians showing that they will be ones to watch when it comes to the battle for a South/Central Football Conference title.

Standout senior running back Kenya Johnson scored four touchdowns and Sprague was able to build a 26-0 advantage before settling for a 36-12 triumph over the visiting Black Tornado.

“They’re tough, just plain and simple,” said North Medford head coach Nathan Chin of the Olympians. “They’re good up front and they threw the ball well enough so they had a nice mix with the running back.”

“And then we just couldn’t get anything going offensively,” added Chin. “They gave us a completely different (defensive) look than they have in the last two weeks, so we were scrambling a little bit trying to find something to get going.”

Sprague finished seventh in last year’s SCFC standings but has already equaled its total of conference wins thanks to Friday’s effort. The Olympians (3-0, 2-0 SCFC) served notice with a 42-27 win over Newberg in Week Zero, then ratcheted it up for a 48-35 win at West Salem last week to knock off a Titans team many viewed as an up-and-comer to watch for this year’s league race.

Being able to handle North Medford in the way Sprague did on Friday will add another feather in its cap, and allow the Black Tornado (1-1, 1-1) to regroup for what will hopefully be a momentum-changing opportunity next week against Sheldon at Spiegelberg Stadium.

“Our preparation during the week has got to be better and our focus in traveling has got to be better,” said Chin. “We’ve got to build, and you learn from your losses. If we don’t learn anything from this one then it will be a rough one again next time. I believe in our kids. They’ll come ready to work and they’ll come focused and we’ll get to the drawing board. We’re coming up with a tough one this week so we’re going to have to really focus in and dial in.”

North Medford only trailed 14-0 at halftime but Sprague was able to mount a nice drive out of the break, converting on third downs and using passes from Dukatti Witherspoon to Aidan Andresen to set up a 4-yard TD run by Johnson.

“I thought we could try to find some momentum,” Chin said of new hopes for the second half, “but them going down and scoring right after halftime probably was a little bit of a tough one to swallow. But our kids kept battling until it got about to that mid-fourth quarter and we had a couple guys get dinged.”

Johnson later took a screen pass from Witherspoon 59 yards to allow Sprague to build a comfortable 26-0 cushion in the third quarter. It was Johnson’s 11th TD of the season.

North Medford finally was able to break through with 1:35 remaining in the third quarter when Easton Curtis somehow managed to get his hands on a 30-yard TD pass from Traeger Healy. Curtis was well-covered on the play but Healy put the ball in a spot where his teammate could hopefully make a play on it and the senior was able to battle back and grab the ball just below his knees while being tackled in the end zone.

“That was a phenomenal catch,” said Chin.

Sprague, once again, had answers as Giovanni Pierre-Mike scored on a 3-yard plunge. After an interception return by Max Makarenko, Carson Farwell connected on a 24-yard field goal to push the Olympians’ lead back up to 36-6 in the fourth quarter.

“They’re a tough team, hands down to them,” said Chin. “They’re good.”

Joe Castillo scored on a 7-yard run with 2:43 remaining in the game for North Medford in the final tally of the night.