GAME NINE B-A Blue Devils: 35 Moshannon Valley Black Knights: 7 Friday, October 26, 2007 • Memorial Field • Bellwood, Pennsylvania
By Bob Miller | Daily Herald Sports Editor
— In only their second game against Single-A competition, Bellwood-Antis showed that they want to go to the District 6-A playoffs which begin next week. On Friday night at Bellwood Memorial Stadium, the Blue Devils rocked a solid Moshannon Valley eleven 35-7 on B-A Senior Night. — Brandon Humphreys led the way for Bellwood-Antis with 221 yards and four touchdowns, but the real leaders were the offensive and defensive lines, who pretty much manhandled their Mo Valley counterparts. — “Obviously when you can run the football, it comes down to the line,” said Bellwood-Antis coach John Hayes, whose team rushed for 369 yards, easily their best total of the year, and held the Black Knights to just 59 yards rushing on 30 carries. — “We are still putting pieces in the puzzle and moving pieces,” explained Hayes. B-A moved sophomore Zach Doyle in to play center, his first varsity start, and shifted Adam Kovac over to left guard and Jeff Novak to right guard to team with tackles Anthony Jenkins on the left and Cody Smith on the right and tight end Justin Miller. The combination worked to the tune of averaging 7.2 yards per carry. “We had a good week of practice, and tonight they came off the ball well, and moved people and, of course, that makes it easy for the backs when the holes and seams are there to bounce through. Defensively, we pretty much took the run away from them for the most part. That is where it all starts and ends.” — Moshannon Valley received the opening kick and was able to move from their own-19 out to the Mo Valley-46, before a stop for no gain on a third-and-five play forced a punt. Humphreys and Bruno DeGol matched nine-yard gains, but Humphreys fumbled and Moshannon Valley recovered and the Knights had the ball right back. Three plays netted minus one yard however, and Bellwood-Antis took over at their own-35 after the punt. — Justin Manning opened the series by blasting for six yards and then it was two carries by Humphreys for a total of 16 yards. Shane Noye picked up six yards, but the Blue Devils were faced with a fourth-down and inches four plays later. Humphreys zipped through a hole on the left side opened by Kovac and Jenkins and was gone for the 28-yard touchdown and a 6-0 lead with 2:28 left in the first stanza. — Two series later, Bellwood-Antis got the ball at the MV-48. Humphreys picked up 13 yards and a first down on the first two carries, but after quarterback Nate Gray was just short on a seven-yard scamper around the right side, the Blue Devils had a fourth-and-one again. Same play-same result. Humphreys bolted over the left side and easily outraced everybody for a 26-yard score. On the PAT, the ball was snapped directly to kicker Nate Gray, who tossed a pass to Humphreys for a two-point conversion and a 14-0 advantage. — Moshannon Valley then drove 74 yards for their only score of the game. Junior quarterback Tyler Neff provided the spark by finding sophomore Nick Gmerek behind the Blue devil defense for a 39-yard pass play. Back-to-back runs of 13 and 12 yards by Anthony Kruise sparked the drive and Brandon Morroni burst the final two yards for the TD. Justin Duderich added the PAT to slice the B-A lead in half to 14-7. — “We got beat by a better football team,” said Moshannon Valley coach Murray Fetzer, a Tyrone grad and former Tyrone assistant coach. “We knew coming in that Bellwood-Antis would be very physical up front, and that we needed to match that physicalness. We didn’t do a good job at that. That and they really dominated us at the line of scrimmage. That’s where the game was won. We kept it close in the first half. I thought our kids played hard. We missed a couple opportunities to stop them at the beginning of the third quarter, but give credit to Bellwood, they always have a nice program here. A better football team beat us tonight.” — Bellwood-Antis added two more scores in the third quarter and one in the fourth. B-A was able to convert one fourth down and two third downs plays into first down runs on the first series of the third quarter, as the Blue Devils cut the quarter in half for Moshannon Valley. — The Blue Devils drove 67 yards in 13 plays to score a four-yard TD by Humphreys. Humphreys ate up 55 yards on the drive and Justin Miller caught a pass from Gray for the two-point PAT. — Moshannon Valley was knocked back by the B-A defense on their next series. Tyler Geis sacked Neff for an eight-yard loss and senior linebacker Chuck Tomchick made two straight tackles, the second on a fake punt attempt keeping the Knights well short of the first down marker at the MV-43. — Lightening struck on the next play, with Humphreys slicing over the left side and racing 43 yards for his fourth TD of contest. Geis had his PAT placement blocked, but Bellwood-Antis had scored on back-to-back plays to open up a 28-7 lead. — The Black Knights then mounted their best drive of the second half, beginning at their own-9 and marching out to midfield, mostly on the arm of Neff, who completed five of six passes and went around the right side for a pick-up of 16 yards in the series. — The march died however when Neff was sacked for a nine-yard loss and Morroni was stopped for a loss of one on consecutive plays. — Bellwood-Antis capped the scoring with less than a minute to play. This drive belonged to sophomore Zach McCaulley. Manning gained seven and Humphreys picked up three in curtain calls, but McCaulley had his number called six straight times to cover all of the final 58 yards, including the three-yard TD. Geis kicked the extra point.
