PASADENA - Nederland ruled Mid-County away from Mid-County on Saturday night and the Bulldogs seemed right at home in Larry Neumann's hometown.

  Port Neches-Groves owned the stronger side of several significant stat sheets but Nederland departed Memorial Stadium, owning the care-free feeling that PN-G could win all of the stats that it might want....

except the score.

  Nederland 35, PN-G 28 was the only stat that Nederland felt they wanted to read in Sunday's newspapers and telecasts. The rest of the stats could go jump into Tugboat Island.

  ”Be prepared for the momentum shifts and be able to roll with them,“ the veteran 13-year Bulldogs head coach instructed his players at Tuesday's team meeting.

  Sure enough, when Saturday night's momentum shifted abruptly, it arrived about midway into the third quarter. Alex Moshier and Ryan Butler hooked up on a 69-yard touchdown reply, giving NHS a head for keeps at 28-25. Then seniors Chris Laird and Clint Whitaker followed with a pair of moments-apart interceptions.

  Laird stepped in front of an over-the-middle toss and galloped 39 yards for a touchdown and a 35-25 Nederland lead. Whitaker leaped high up the ladder to pull down a PN-G bomb only 50 seconds after Laird's.

  That's what Neumann meant about seizing the momentum at the opportune times and making the most of it. More and more, Neumann seems to be doing that in the Mid-County Madness rivalry, too. Nederland now has won an overjoyous five of six meetings against PN-G.

  The Bulldogs now have won nine times in Neumann's 13 seasons at the helm. They have no time to celebrate the success, though, because the Dogs (3-2 and 1-0) have a Thursday game awaiting against another 20-4A powerhouse, Beaumont Ozen.

  Meanwhile, the consolation prize for coach Matt Burnett's Indians (2-3 and 0-1) are stats, stats and more stats. The Indians dominated first downs, 20-12; massively owned the better time of possession, 29:13 to 18:47; produced more prolific passing numbers, 224-142; and probably possessed the game's most dominating defender, end Hunter Davis, with three sacks for 26 yards.

  But the Indians, for all their advantages, did not have Ryan Butler.

  Ryan has a way of being an incredible equalizer. He burns, burns and finds ways to keep on burning you. Butler just ran the ball on three occasions for 78 yards. He just caught three passes for 93 more.

  Whenever Nederland needed Butler to knock PN-G on its heals, the Bulldogs star obliged. Like early in the second half, when Ryan put the afterburners on PN-G's secondary on a 61-yard touchdown reverse scamper for a 21-6 lead.

  Butler spinned away from Indians' corner Isiah Mitchell and busted loose even after it appeared that PN-G had pinned him into a corner on its sideline.

  Since Nederland clearly wasn't interested in keeping the ball for long, PN-G further took the possession-time edge by answering with a 73-yard, eight-play series. A 26-yard lob from Jeremy Hemmings to Kane Segura provided the entrance into NHS territory before the two hooked up on a stop-n-go route for a 29-yard scoring strike in the left end zone corner. That sliced it to Nederland, 21-13, with 4:09 left in the third quarter.

  Neither of these offenses looked at mid-season form and that should be quite understandable. PN-G's Hemmings finished the night with 12 of 29 for 224 yards but those two back-to-back interceptions proved very costly. The strange part about those numbers was that PN-G's passing game was virtually non-existent until halftime.

  Hemmings departed the game and missed the last seven minutes of the first half reportedly due to a dislocated finger. Regardless of the injury, it seemed as if PN-G looked determined to pound away at

Nederland's midsection with the ground game for a half.

  PN-G's ability to run the ball was never more obvious than on the opening series, a 49-yard, 10-play series without a pass attempt. Brandon Begnaud (15 rushes for 76 yards) pounded home the opening

touchdown on a two-yard pitchout with 5:49 left in the opening quarter. The wind all seemed to get blown from PN-G's sails after the ensuing extra-point kick sailed wide right.

  Nederland retaliated with the game's leading rusher Micah Mosley (22 carries for 121 yards), who ripped PN-G's defense on a counter for an 18-yard scoring run with 3:02 left in the opening quarter. Clint

Whitaker's conversion kick lifted the Dogs up, 7-6.

  The Indians fabricated their own impressive momentum swing, reeling off 19 straight points and briefly retaking the lead at 25-21 with 9:06 left in the game.

  Besides the Hemmings-to-Segura toss -- which cut it to 21-13 -- Jeremy kept the ball to his left on a 3rd-and-1 call and ran 32 yards for a score with 22 seconds left in the third quarter. Then an unguarded Brian Domino dashed home on a 56-yard scoring pass from Hemmings.

  Domino appeared to not know what to do as he stood outside the hash marks. His defender, Nederland corner Garrett Butler, must have fallen for a Halloween trick-or-treat two weeks early. The Indians returned to Nederland territory in the game's final two minutes, converting Taylor Albritton's 39-yard field goal with 1:30 to play. However, Garrett Butler ended any PN-G comeback thoughts by securing Chad Monk's ensuing onside kick.

  While Nederland tests Ozen on Thursday, PN-G entertains Little Cypress-Mauriceville at The Reservation. The Indian Stadium facility has been declared as playable for this week.