WYALUSING – Even though both South Williamsport and Wyalusing still have half of their seasons still to come following Thursday night’s matchup and will still largely hold their postseason fate in their own hands either way, Thursday night’s game was an important one nonetheless in what is shaping up to a very competitive race for the eight playoff spots in District 4 Class 2A.
South Williamsport, which moved up to 2A from A last year, entered Thursday in ninth place and out of the playoff picture after an uncharacteristic 1-3 start to its season. Wyalusing, which started 3-0 before dropping its first game of the year to Montgomery last week, sat in seventh place despite the 3-1 record.
The separation between the two teams on the field on Thursday ended up being even smaller than their separation in the playoff standings, and in the end, South Williamsport came away as the team that gave itself a boost as the Mounties hung on for a narrow 21-19 win over the Rams, a week after dropping a one-point game to Milton.
“It’s great to get on the other side of the scoreboard because last week was the exact opposite,” said South coach Chris Eiswerth. “It was kind of like Deja vu, but it was really gratifying. We’re playing six or seven freshmen right now on both sides of the ball. It’s been very physical this year, opening up with Athens – big school that’s having a great year, then a tremendous program in Canton, then Troy, one of the top teams in the state in AA, then Milton 4A, and then we come up here to play a team that’s really on a high, so to be where we’re at right now, we’re really excited.”
The game wasn’t decided until Jacob Girven’s 40-yard field goal attempt with :05 left in the game came up short for Wyalusing, sealing the win for South Williamsport.
“Jacob can hit from 40, he’s done it many times in practice, so we had confidence in him. He just got under it and shorted it a little bit, and that’s a lot of pressure on a kid in that situation,” said Wyalusing coach Rich Rogers.
The Rams were forced to settle for a long field goal attempt after committing 20 yards of penalties – all of the pre-snap variety – on their final drive. They were able to overcome the first two, but not the second two, which came on back-to-back pre snaps and turned a 1st-and-10 from the South 25 into a 1st-and-20 from the 35.
Those four penalties for 20 yards were just a small sample of the 12 penalties for 75 yards that hampered Wyalusing throughout the game. Of those, 10 were pre-snap penalties either for false starts, illegal formations, or offside in which a lineman lined up incorrectly. Those miscues, which led to the Rams getting further behind the down markers on several occasions, were the biggest difference in a game in which Wyalusing totaled more yards than South, 321-244.
“We are an offense where you can’t have minus-five, and minus 10, definitely not – that’s the end of the drive. It doesn’t matter which down,” said Rogers. “If we’re not ready, then it’s on me to correct it moving forward. I told the kids we had everything we needed tonight for victory. We had effort, we had the comeback, we had the right attitude. It was just the mistakes that killed us for the second week in a row.”
While it was a nail biter for South, the Mounties never trailed. South took a 7-0 lead near the end of the first quarter. After taking over at its own 42 after stopping the Rams on downs, a big 27-yard run by Cade Lusk flipped the field, and give plays later, Lusk found the end zone from five yards out. That drive was the beginning of a big night for Lusk, who finished with 141 yards on 16 carries.
The Mounties then took advantage of Wyalusing’s only turnover of the game to make it a two-score game early in the second. South recovered a Ram fumble at the Wyalusing 35 with 1:40 left in the first. On a 4th-and-6 play, the Mounties were the beneficiary of an obvious pass interference call to extend the drive, and then quarterback Tadd Lusk later capped the drive with a 10-yard touchdown run on a naked bootleg.
The Rams would answer back on their ensuing possession, however, as Ayden Hunsinger burst loose up the middle for a 65-yard touchdown on the second play of the drive to cut South’s lead in half, 14-7.
With Wyalusing’s other primary running back, Dylan Johns, out due to injury, Hunsinger saw the majority of the carries on the night for the Rams and answered the bell big-time, running for 250 yards on 26 carries and scoring all three of Wyalusing’s touchdowns.
With South driving down to inside the 10 and on the doorstep of scoring again on its subsequent drive, Ethan Vanderpool intercepted a Lusk pass and returned it to the Wyalusing 31 at the 5:10 mark of the second quarter.
The Rams then put together a nine-play, 69-yard drive capped by Hunsinger’s eight-yard touchdown run. But a pre-snap penalty on the PAT pushed the Rams back five yards and the kick was blocked, maintaining a slim one-point lead for South going into halftime.
“I said at one point on the sideline, I feel like we don’t know how to punch, we only know how to counterpunch,” said Rogers. “Why do we need to go down 14-0 before we start playing, but it was mostly mistakes. Offensive line not lining up correctly, jumping early.”
South would extend that once again to 21-13 on its first drive of the second half. After taking over near midfield following a Wyalusing punt, the Mounties went 51 yards in six plays, capped by Eli White’s 29-yard touchdown run with 4:55 to play in the third quarter.
The Mounties would only manage one more first down the rest of the game and were forced to punt on their next two possessions. Wyalusing took advantage as Hunsinger found the end zone for the third time on a 31-yard run to cut the deficit to two with 8:14 remaining, but Hunsinger was kept out of the end zone on the attempted two-point conversion.
South Williamsport 21, Wyalusing 19
South Williamsport (2-3) 7 7 7 0 – 21
Wyalusing (3-2) 0 13 0 6 – 19
First quarter
1:53 – (SW) Cade Lusk 5-yard run (Ogden kick), 6-58, 3:16
Second quarter
11:12 – (SW) Tadd Lusk 10-yard run (Ogden kick), 6-35, 2:28
10:10 – (W) Ayden Hunsinger 65-yard run (Girven kick), 2-65, 1:02
:49 – (W) Ayden Hunsinger 8-yard run (kick blocked), 9-69, 4:21
Third quarter
4:55 – (SW) Eli White 29-yard run (Ogden kick), 6-51, 2:59
Fourth quarter
8:14 – (W) Ayden Hunsinger 31-yard run (run failed), 3-44, 1:23
Statistics
SW W
First downs 13 14
Rushes-net yards 34-224 43-324
Passing yardage 20 -3
Passing 2-10-0-1 1-1-0-0
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-1
Penalties-yards 1-5 12-75
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: South Williamsport: Cade Lusk (16-141-1), Eli White (12-81-1), Tadd Lusk (4-10-1), Team (1-(-1)), Dylan Scheller (1-(-7)); Wyalusing: Ayden Hunsinger (26-250-3), Ethan Vanderpool (15-69), Jonathan Earle (1-5), Isaac Shaffer (1-0)
PASSING: South Williamsport: Tadd Lusk (2-10-20-0-1); Wyalusing: Jonathan Earle (1-1-(-3)-0-0)
RECEIVING: South Williamsport: Dylan Scheller (2-20); Wyalusing: Isaac Shaffer (1-(-3))
