GAME FOUR B-A Blue Devils: 61 West Branch Warriors: 0 Friday,September 19, 2008 • Kylertown, Pennsylvania
By Bob Miller | Daily Herald Sports Editor
— Bellwood-Antis (3-1) won a track meet of a football game at West Branch on Friday night. The Blue Devils had nine plays of 21 yards or more, including TDs of 46, 43, 21, 21 and 53 yards to demolish the Warriors 61-0. — On the other side of the ball, after not getting a shutout for 20 straight games, the B-A defense put their second goose egg in a row into the books. West Branch (0-4) was able to net just 59 yards rushing on 24 carries and added just another 27 yards on four of 13 pass completions. Bellwood-Antis held West Branch to just five first downs, never more than one in a series. — The B-A offense was led by junior tailback Zach McCaulley’s 175 rushing yards on just 13 carries, coupled with senior QB Nate GrayÕs five-of-nine, 165 passing yards, over half of the team’s 637 yards of total offense. — The Blue Devils gave up one first down to West Branch on the first series of the game from scrimmage, but forced the first of seven Warrior punts and turned around and marched 74 yards for a touchdown. Bellwood-Antis scored nine of the 10 times they had the ball, the only non-scoring sequence being a kneel-down to run out the clock by sophomore quarterback Lucas Evans after the B-A junior varsity had driven from the BA-21 to the Blue Devils 43 on the final series of the game. — “We were satisfied with the execution. We came into the game with two goals,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach John Hayes. “We wanted to try and really improve our offense execution. In all three games before tonight, we pretty much hurt ourselves with that. Tonight, with the exception of a couple penalties, everything that we did we did well. The kids blocked really well up front, and that’s the key to the whole deal. The backs ran hard, and when we threw the ball we had time and Nate (Gray) got the ball to the receivers, and we made some big plays there.” — McCaulley put Bellwood-Antis on the scoreboard with a 43-yard romp for the opening touchdown, and Tyler Geis booted the extra point. — West Branch failed to move the ball and punted. It took just two plays to cover 55 yards for the TD. McCaulley opened up the quick march with a nine-yard gain before Gray found Nick DeGol for a 46-yard TD pass. This marks the third straight week the senior QB has thrown a TD pass without an interception. Geis missed the PAT. — West Branch running back J. T. Confer, playing his first game of the season, took a Jet Series handoff from quarterback Jeremy Kanouff for a seven-yard gain and a first down on the Warriors’ next series. One play later, however, Blue Devil outside linebacker Tim Collier smothered Confer for a six-yard loss and West Branch ended up punting. — McCaulley had his number called twice for 25 yards, Gray kept the ball for a dozen yards, senior fullback Jason Miller moved the sticks with a 10-yard pickup and then Gray ran the same keeper again for the 21-yard TD. Geis added the PAT kick for a 20-0 lead with 10 and a half minutes to play in the first half. — First Grant Martin, and then Miller stopped West Branch for back-to-back three-yard losses and an incomplete pass forced a West Branch punt. Gray jump-started the following drive with a 14-yard pass completion to Collier. McCaulley romped for 10 yards, Jim Watters bulled up the middle for six, and DeGol notched his second score in as many different ways, rushing for the 21-yard score. Geis added the placement for a 27-0 advantage with 7:25 to play in the half. — “Defensively, we wanted to keep as many points off the scoreboard as we could, and I think our special teams helped,” said Hayes. “We had good field position to start most of defensive situations. The kickoff team did a great job in keeping them contained and the defense was in position and did what we wanted to shut them out. It was a total team effort with everybody contributing, even many of the younger kids.” — Bellwood-Antis scored once more in the first half when McCaulley capped a 78-yard march with a 15-yard TD and Geis added the PAT kick. — The Blue Devils muffed the second-half kickoff and had to begin the first series of the third quarter at their own five-yard line. It took just two plays to eat up a considerable portion of the remaining distance. On the second play from the BA-9, McCaulley motored 37 yards and a play later, Gray, hit Geis over the middle for 46 yards. McCaulley scored the two-yard TD and Geis added the extra point for a 41-0 lead that put the Mercy Rule clock into operation at the 9:14 mark in the third quarter. — A series later, with the junior varsity playing the rest of the game, Travis Taylor ripped off 11 yards for the second time in the march for the score. This time it was Nate Plummer booting the PAT. — On the following kickoff, West Branch fumbled once on the kickoff near their own end zone, picked it up and returned it near midfield, fumbled it again, where Errin McCaulley recovered the ball for Bellwood-Antis at the 50. Watters burst into the clear and outran everybody on the third call of the drive for a 39-yard touchdown. Plummer’s kick made it 55-0 at the end of the third quarter. — The Blue Devils put one more TD on the board when sophomore fullback Tyler Beech got loose for a 53-yard touchdown on his only carry of the game.
