MOUNT CARMEL – Hughesville has never beaten Mount Carmel, but the Spartans were at least hoping to be more competitive against the Red Tornados as they came into the Silver Bowl on Friday than they have been in the teams’ last six meetings over the last five seasons.
In those last six contests dating back to 2018, including a meeting in the district playoffs last year, Mount Carmel has scored no fewer than 46 points in each game while winning handily.
While Hughesville has been a much-improved team both last year and this year from the handful of years prior and showed as much on the field on Friday, the Spartans were unable to finish several of their drives while Mount Carmel did, and that, along with the speed of Xaviar Diaz of Mount Carmel was the difference as the Red Tornados shook off a sluggish start and once again put up a big number on the scoreboard in a 54-14 win.
“Our guys did a good job with fighting through that (slow start) but that’s definitely something we need to clean up,” said Mount Carmel coach John Darrah. “That’s something we work on and stress at practice, so we just need to have it translate into the game. We were fortunate to be able to overcome it but we need to get better.”
The Red Tornados will have all of next week to work on starting the game and will likely need to be better in that respect next week as six-time defending state champion Southern Columbia makes the short trek to the Silver Bowl.
But on Friday, Diaz catapulted his team past its slow start with a couple of big plays in the first half. He finished with 252 all-purpose yards and a pair of touchdowns, but it was two key plays he made in the first half that helped shift the momentum and give the Red Tornados a boost when they needed it most after a lackluster start.
After Mount Carmel went three-and-out on its opening drive and committed a pair of penalties, the Red Tornados committed two more penalties, including a personal foul, on Hughesville’s first possession, which allowed the Spartans to advance down to the Mount Carmel 14-yard line. But Hughesville missed a 31-yard field goal attempt, and Mount Carmel was able to escape its slow start unscathed on the scoreboard.
On the next play of the game, Diaz burst through the middle of the line and got loose for an 80-yard touchdown run at the 7:42 mark of the first quarter to draw first blood. Diaz was a good 20 yards in front of the nearest defender when he crossed the goal line.
On Hughesville’s ensuing possession after Diaz’s touchdown, the Red Tornados stopped the Spartans near midfield and forced them to punt. But Diaz muffed the punt, giving the Spartans the ball at the Mount Carmel 14, and they would capitalize in three plays to tie the score on an eight-yard touchdown pass from Tyler Wetzel to Aiden Barlett on a seam route.
Mount Carmel answered right away as Luke Blessing weaved through some tight traffic before getting into the open field for a 45-yard touchdown to cap a six-play drive and put the Red Tornados on top 14-7.
From there, Mount Carmel stopped Hughesville around midfield to force a punt, which Diaz this time fielded cleanly and returned 57 yards all the way to the Hughesville 23. Five plays later, Blessing punched it in from a yard out for his second touchdown of the night, and Hughesville would never be any closer on the scoreboard.
“Xaviar is an electric player and can do some damage anytime he gets the ball in his hands, so it’s definitely great when you can have a short field,” said Mount Carmel coach John Darrah.
The Red Tornados would stop Hughesville on downs at the Mount Carmel 33 on the Spartans’ ensuing drive, and then put together their longest scoring drive of the night in time as they went 67 yards in 3:13 and took a 28-7 lead when Cole Spears ran it into the end zone from seven yards out and Blessing punched it in on the two-point conversion.
It remained 28-7 at halftime after Mount Carmel’s defense came up big with a fourth down stop near the goal line as they forced a fumble by Wetzel with :11 left in the half to keep it a three-score game.
“The first half, I thought we played them well. We should have been close to even. A few passes were just inches away from big plays, maybe touchdowns,” said Hughesville coach Howard Rainey. “In the second half, after we got shut down a couple of times and they scored, you could see our heads went down. We just couldn’t finish and Diaz is so fast, once he got outside on us a few times, he was gone.”
The Spartans racked up 168 yards in the first half, but were stopped twice on downs in addition to the missed field goal, and had the field position flipped due to Diaz’ long punt return on their only other first-half drive in addition to their touchdown.
Mount Carmel then slowly extended the lead in the second half as Spears threw three touchdown passes, giving him responsibility for four touchdowns on the night. He turned in another solid game as he completed 14-of-17 passes for 154 yards.
He threaded the needle and found Jacob Schultz in a tight window in the end zone for a 14-yard touchdown to give Mount Carmel a 34-7 lead with 5:54 left in the third.
After a 24-yard punt return by Diaz set up Mount Carmel at the Hughesville 37 after the Spartans went three-and-out on their next drive, Spears hit Tait Adams in the end zone, who made an outstanding catch falling out of bounds to extend the Red Tornado lead to 41-7 late in the third.
Hughesville was finally able to capitalize as Wetzel hit Barlett once again for a 15-yard touchdown reception in the corner of the end zone at the 11:11 mark of the fourth to cap a 10-play drive and stave off the mercy rule being invoked.
Although the Spartans were able to finish the drive late, Hughesville had a much more difficult time getting yards in the second half, as Mount Carmel held them to just 94 yards in the second half, of which 57 came on that scoring drive, after Hughesville had gotten 168 yards in the first half.
“We made a couple of adjustments in the second half. They game-planned pretty well to take advantage of some things, and we cleaned things up,” said Darrah. “I think we were overpursing a little bit in the first half and had some mental busts that allowed them to make some plays so we played better and cleaned some things up.”
“Our offense is slowly starting to gel, we’re getting into the red zone but just not getting that extra effort at the end,” said Rainey. “I thought we hung with them real well, but just couldn’t finish our drives on the last 10 yards each time. We knew we had to pass against them coming down here, and we did it well, but at the end, our receivers were getting tired and we were missing them by inches. If we make another four of those catches or so, we’re right in the game. If our offense keeps doing what they did in the first half tonight, I think we’ll be right there (in our last three games).”
Mount Carmel scored twice more and the rule was eventually invoked with just over eight minutes to play. Spears capped his evening by hitting Diaz on a short screen pass, and Diaz did the rest as he shook off defenders and again used his speed to turn it into a 33-yard touchdown reception and put a cap on his evening as well.
Cooper Karycki added a late touchdown on a four-yard run for Mount Carmel.
Mount Carmel 54, Hughesville 14
Hughesville (3-4) 7 0 0 7 – 14
Mount Carmel (5-2) 14 14 13 13 – 54
First quarter
7:42 – (MC) Xaviar Diaz 80-yard run (Schoppy kick), 1-80, :12
2:47 – (H) Aiden Barlett 8-yard pass from Tyler Wetzel (Farley kick), 3-14, 1:44
:30 – (MC) Luke Blessing 45-yard run (Schoppy kick), 6-71, 2:17
Second quarter
8:42 – (MC) Luke Blessing 1-yard run (kick blocked), 5-23, 1:42
3:09 – (MC) Cole Spears 7-yard run (Blessing run), 8-67, 3:13
Third quarter
5:54 – (MC) Jacob Schultz 14-yard pass from Cole Spears (kick failed), 8-40, 2:00
2:15 – (MC) Tait Adams 6-yard pass from Cole Spears (Schoppy kick), 6-37, 2:28
Fourth quarter
11:11 – (H) Aiden Barlett 15-yard pass from Tyler Wetzel (Farley kick), 10-57, 3:04
10:15 – (MC) Xaviar Diaz 33-yard pass from Cole Spears (kick failed), 4-53, :56
8:07 – (MC) Cooper Karycki 4-yard run (Schoppy kick), 6-61, 1:31
Statistics
H MC
First downs 17 24
Rushes-net yards 28-80 42-337
Passing yardage 182 164
Passing 19-40-2-1 15-19-3-1
Fumbles-lost 1-1 2-1
Penalties-yards 4-23 8-75
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Hughesville: Angelo Ferrigno (13-59), Tyler Wetzel (5-4), Luke Stutzman (4-11), Connor Anstadt (2-7), Aiden Barlett (2-6), Chase Fowler (1-6), TEAM (1-(-13)); Mount Carmel: Luke Blessing (14-99-2), Aiden Deitz (9-37), Xaviar Diaz (6-113-1), Cooper Karycki (6-55-1), Cole Spears (6-30-1), Al Bailey (1-3)
PASSING: Hughesville: Tyler Wetzel (18-38-179-2-1), Connor Anstadt (1-1-3-0-0), Angelo Ferrigno (0-1-0-0-0) ; Mount Carmel: Cole Spears (14-17-154-3-1), Gavin Marshalek (1-2-10-0-0)
RECEIVING: Hughesville: Conor Knight (7-61), Aiden Barlett (5-56-2), Connor Anstadt (2-33), John Finnegan (2-9), Angelo Ferrigno (1-18), Trent Wetzel (1-3), Luke Stutzman (1-2); Mount Carmel: Jacob Schultz (6-65-1), Xaviar Diaz (5-58-1), Al Bailey (1-17), Jaylen Delaney (1-10), Luke Blessing (1-8), Tait Adams (1-6-1)
