ROSS TWP— North Hills netted 34 yards of offense and registered one first down in the first half.

Then the Indians took to the sky.

Two Justin Heinauer passes — one covering 51 yards, the other 57 — set up one touchdown and produced another as the Indians defeated Butler 21-3 in their homecoming football game Friday night at Martorelli Stadium.

The game was scoreless at halftime.

"They caught us with a formation we weren't ready to defend,"Butler coach Jeff McAnallen said of the Indians' first big pass. "Jack (McCurry) tricked us on that one play and it cost us."

The lone first down for North Hills (6-1, 3-0) in the first two quarters came with 12 seconds left in the half. The Indians' first play of the second half, a 29-yard run by Elijah David, was wiped out by a holding penalty.

The next play was a 51-yard bomb to speedy receiver Lloyd Phillips, handing the hosts a first down at the Golden Tornado 22-yard line.

Butler's Dayne Horwat and Jordan Allen combined to sack Heinauer on second-and-goal, but Heinauer found Cody Patton for a 16-yard touchdown pass on the next play.

Patton reached out and touched the pylon with the ball in the near right corner of the end zone as he was being driven out of bounds.

"Butler caught us off guard with their defense in the first half,"North Hills coach Jack McCurry said. "They gave us a two-safety look and played man-to-man on our receivers.

"We hadn't seen that. It made it difficult for us to run our post patterns and we couldn't run the ball."

Phillips beat single coverage for his big catch in the third quarter. It was his only catch of the night.

Butler (3-4, 0-3) responded to the score with a lengthy drive of its own. The Tornado marched 64 yards in 14 plays before settling for a 33-yard Ryan Soule field goal with 11:06 left in the game.

A bad snap resulted in a 31-yard Soule field goal attempt being blocked with 1:11 left in the first half.

"I was tempted to go for the first down there (in the second half), but it was fourth-and-7 and we needed two scores to win anyway,"McAnallen said.

"We wanted to stop them, get the ball back and win the game."

A swing pass to the Indians' Max Creighan foiled that plan.

Three plays after Soule's field goal, Heinauer hit Creighan in stride on a swing pass down the right sideline. He shook himself loose and raced 57 yards for a back-breaking touchdown.

"The swing pass was one of the adjustments we made at halftime,"McCurry said. "We thought it would be there."

"We had the play defensed. We just didn't make the play,"McAnallen said. "(Creighan) made two of our guys miss and was able to break free."

The Tornado never threatened again.

Elijah David tacked on a 13-yard touchdown run for North Hills with 42 seconds left in the game. David had 18 carries for 104 yards, the scoring run putting him over the century mark.

"We're getting close. ... We're just not finishing things off yet,"McAnallen said.

Butler sacked Heinauer three times in the first half. Cole Baxter, Joe Marak, Jordan Emrick and Luke Gilliland produced those plays for the Tornado defense.

Gilliland recovered a North Hills fumble, caused by Tony Fudoli, in the second half.

"That is a much-improved football team,"McCurry said. "I'm impressed with their schemes and their front four defensively came off the ball extremely well.

"Jeff should be excited about the way that program is coming along."

Butler struggled to get field position in the first half, starting three of four possessions inside its own 25, including one from the 1-yard line following a North Hills punt.

The other Tornado possession began at midfield and ended with the blocked field goal attempt.

"That first half went exactly how we wanted, our defense forcing three-and-outs and our offense grinding out some first downs,"McAnallen said. "It was a momentum half, but we couldn't get the lead."