DANVILLE – The last two seasons have ended for Danville in the state playoffs with lopsided losses.
Two years ago, the Ironmen went to Wyomissing on a Saturday afternoon and fell by 30 points in the state semifinals to the Spartans, who went on to finish as the state runner-up.
Last year, Danville lost by 28 points to Neumann-Goretti in the state quarterfinal, which then went on to fall by 36 to Wyomissing in the state semifinal, as the Spartans finished as the state runner-up for the second straight season.
Danville got essentially a return game from Wyomissing on Friday, this time in the state quarterfinal round, as the Ironmen looked to narrow that gap between themselves and the PIAA eastern champion from the past two seasons.
And while it was little consolation to Danville, the Ironmen appear to have trimmed that gap between it and Wyomissing to a razor-thin margin. After a first half that looked like Wyomissing would once again run through the Ironmen en route to the next round of the state playoffs, Danville battled back with an outstanding second-half effort, and only a missed field goal by the thinnest of margins prevented the Ironmen from notching an unbelievable upset as Wyomissing survived with a 21-19 win over Danville to advance to the state semifinals next week in a matchup of the state’s two top-ranked teams in Class 3A.
“That’s the way it should be when number one and number two play each other,” said Wyomissing coach Bob Wolfrum. “We have two coaches on the staff that has A-fib, and (this game) almost put us back into A-fib tonight. We battled and we made mistakes, and I’m sure they’d say they made mistakes. We certainly wouldn’t have been happy but we certainly couldn’t have faulted the effort if we had lost.”
“We had opportunities to win the game, there were balls on the ground that we didn’t get, but we just didn’t make enough plays to win the game,” said Danville coach Mike Brennan. “You want to have a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter this time of year, but we fell just short.
For much of the first half, it looked like more of the same of how Danville’s last two seasons ended, as Wyomissing’s running game and its precise Wing T attack largely pinned Danville pack as the Spartans had 217 first-half yards, including 186 on the ground, to just 70 yards or Danville, as Wyomissing ran 37 plays to just 18 for the Ironmen en route to a 21-6 halftime lead.
The Spartans scored touchdowns on their first three possessions, as they put together three long drives of nine, nine, and 14 plays, respectively, while Danville was only able to muster up a single first down in the middle of all of that. Evan Blickley hauled in a 23-yard pass from Ben Zechman on Wyomissing’s first pass attempt of the night to cap a 64-yard drive on Wyomissing’s first possession, which took 4:50.
The Spartans followed that up with a 51-yard drive that took 3:58, capped by Drew Eisenhower’s 12-yard touchdown run to make it 14-0 with under a minute to go in the first quarter.
Later in the first half, the Spartans put together a 14-play, 65-yard drive that took over half the second quarter – 7:32 in all – capped by a Matt Kramer 2-yard run to go up 21-0.
Danville got a nice 37-yard kickoff return from Aaron Johnson to set itself up at the Wyomissing 49 on its ensuing drive, and the Ironmen got a 29-yard run from Ty Stauffer, a 13-yard completion from Zach Gordon to Johnson, and a six-yard touchdown pass from Gordon to Carson Persing to get on the scoreboard, 21-6, following a blocked PAT just before the half.
As the second half got underway, it looked like more of the same as the Spartans received the second-half kick and proceeded to put together another long drive, but this was stalled at the Danville 19, and Ian Levering kicked a 36-yard field goal. But Wolfrum elected to take the points off the board and take a roughing the kicker penalty, but the Spartans were stopped on a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, and the Ironmen took over at their own 1.
From there, unlike so many of Wyomissing’s opponents over the recent years that have been worn down by the Spartans’ relentless rushing attack, Danville didn’t buckle, and the game began to turn around. Danville converted on a third-and-10 from the 1 when Gordon hit Cameron Kiersch for a 23-yard reception to get out from the shadow of their own end zone.
There was still much more to go, however, and the Ironmen somehow managed to get all of it, as it capped an 11-play, 99-yard drive as Gordon found Kiersch once again, this time in the end zone, for an eight-yard touchdown pass that made it 21-12 after a failed two-point conversion late in the third quarter.
Danville got another big stop on defense on Wyomissing’s ensuing drive, as they sacked Zechman on second down and forced an incompletion on third down, forcing the Spartans to punt. From there, the Ironmen continued to claw back, and put together a comparatively shorter 65-yard drive, capped by Gordon’s three-yard touchdown run. A big 53-yard completion from Gordon to Johnson flipped the field and pinned the Spartans back for the first all night.
A lost fumble by Wyomissing, which uncharacteristically put the ball on the ground four times on the evening, gave Danville the ball back. While the Ironmen were stopped on their ensuing drive, a booming 50-yard punt by Garrett Hoffman pinned Wyomissing back at its own 17, and the Spartans were later forced to punt themselves, which the Ironmen partially blocked, giving Danville one last chance beginning at its own 46 with 1:25 left in the game.
“They were just selling out their secondary and once in a while, we’d catch them but they gave us some bad plays and we had a fumble of two that hurt us,” said Wolfrum.
Gordon completed a 21-yard pass to Mason Raup to set up the Ironmen at the Wyomissing 27, and then after clocking it, ran it himself for a 13-yard gain to the Spartan 14. Two more spikes sandwiched around another run set up a 33-yard game-winning field goal attempt by Johnson, but the kick sailed just barely wide left, allowing the Spartans to breath a sigh of relief.
“It doesn’t make us feel any better right now, but there’s a lot of young kids in the program that have worked really hard, a lot of guys that have made a lot of plays for us on the field,” said Brennan. “We’ve losing some seniors that we can’t replace, but I think those seniors leave a legacy of expectations that our young kids understand now and will put the time in during the offseason, and we’ll come back next year and be ready to go. But right now, my heart goes out of these kids, and I’m so proud of them. ”
Wyomissing 21, Danville 19
Wyomissing (13-0) 14 7 0 0 – 21
Danville (12-1) 0 6 6 7 – 19
First quarter
5:40 – (W) Evan Blickley 23-yard pass from Ben Zechman (Levering kick), 9-64, 4:50
:47 – (W) Drew Eisenhower 12-yard run (Levering kick), 9-51, 3:58
Second quarter
2:42 – (W) Matt Kramer 2-yard run (Levering kick), 14-65, 7:32
:45 – (D) Carson Persing 6-yard pass from Zach Gordon (kick blocked), 6-49, 1:57
Third quarter
2:12 – (D) Cameron Kiersch 8-yard pass from Zach Gordon (pass failed), 11-99, 4:18
Fourth quarter
10:56 – (D) Zach Gordon 3-yard run (Johnson kick), 4-65, 1:41
Statistics
W D
First downs 23 14
Rushes-net yards 59-322 23-104
Passing yardage 31 171
Passing 2-7-1-0 10-23-2-0
Fumbles-lost 4-1 0-0
Penalties-yards 4-36 6-37
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Wyomissing: Matt Kramer (28-160-1), Drew Eisenhower (14-104-1), Charlie McIntyre (12-61), Chase Eisenhower (2-10), TEAM (1-(-1)), Ben Zechman (2-(-12)) ; Danville: Zach Gordon (14-34-1), Ty Stauffer (6-36), Mason Raup (1-31), Carson Persing (1-4), Aaron Johnson (1-(-1))
PASSING — Wyomissing: Ben Zechman (2-7-31-1-0); Danville: Zach Gordon (10-19-171-2-0), Carson Persing (0-1-0-0-0), TEAM (0-3-0-0-0)
RECEIVING — Wyomissing: Evan Blickley (1-23-1), Drew Eisenhower (1-8); Danville: Aaron Johnson (4-102), Carson Persing (3-17-1), Cameron Kiersch (2-31-1), Mason Raup (1-21)
