Tigers tear apart Tornadoes
By: Dave Fegley (twitter: @dfegs9)
Once a year on a fall Friday night, Southern Columbia and Mount Carmel Area square off in arguably the most important rivalry in the entire state. Not based off of the amount of years they have played because there are a lot of longer lasting rivalries than this one. This rivalry, which is separated by a short drive down Route 54, has such a high level of importance because these two programs have had undoubtedly the most combined success than any other teams in terms of wins and championships over the past two decades.
This year, the Tigers went out and took care of business and proved that they are head and heels above Mount Carmel in all aspects of the game. The scoreboard certainly showed it with the Tigers winning in Mercy Rule fashion 55-13, but any eye-witness would be kidding themselves if they thought the score couldn’t have been worse. In fact, the fat lady may have sung at Mattucci’s Restaurant, which is located across the street from the stadium, before the game even began. Thanks to Southern head coach Jim Roth, who has always been a class act in getting his reserves experience when the score becomes out of reach, the Tigers didn’t score much in the second half and they certainly didn’t need to. “Last week our defense stepped it up big time against Central, and I feel they took an even bigger step ahead tonight,” said Roth after the victory.
The Tigers defense forced six fumbles and recovered five of them. Red Tornadoes quarterback Dominic Farronato, who had to run for dear life all game, was held to just 68 yards passing, and the starting defense of the Tigers limited the Tornadoes rushing attack to less than 50 yards before the starters exited the game. The Red Tornadoes finished with 174 yards on the ground, but most of them came with the Red Tornadoes starters taking advantage of the Tigers reserves. Southern’s offense rushed for nearly 350 yards and tacked on an additional 106 through the air.
The scoring frenzy started for the night on the Tigers second offensive play from scrimmage. Sophomore halfback Hunter Thomas took a hand-off 55 yards to pay dirt to start the show. On the next drive, after the Tiger defense forced a fumble, Southern methodically drove down the field behind the push of their offensive line and Jeremiah plowed ahead from the one to put the Tigers up 14-0. After the Red Tornadoes were forced to punt on a three-and-out, Tiger quarterback Nick Becker hooked up with wide-out Mike Klebon for a 65 yard strike to put the black and gold up 21-0. “Nick was very patient and waited for me to get behind their secondary and then threw a great ball. Once I caught it, all I had to do was just run straight ahead,” said Klebon. Josh Yoder came up big on the next series by recovering another Tornado fumble that lead to Becker rushing for a score to make it 28-0.
Klebon recovered yet another Red Tornado fumble on MCA’s next series and Blake Marks scored from three yards out to make it 35-0 after a made extra point by Tyler Keiser. “We came in knowing that they were a good running team, so went wanted to make it a point to shut down their run. I think we did a really good job as a whole unit,” said Tiger linebacker Billy Marzeski who was in on a lot of first half tackles. Marzeski also was the team’s leading rusher with 85 yards on just five carries for the night. Becker ran one in with less than a minute to play in the first half to send his Tigers to the locker room with a commanding 49-0 lead. “Nick hasn’t been running much this year, but tonight he did a good job with his legs. They were certainly selling out and trying to stop our running game by putting all eleven guys in the box, and that opened up some play action for us,” stated Roth.
Jeremiah started off the third quarter with a 27 yard dash to the end zone extending the Tigers lead to 49-0. Blake Panko finally gave the home fans something to cheer about when he scored from 13 yards out towards the end of the third quarter. Not to be out done, Marzeski scored on the ensuing possession to make the score 55-7 after breaking tackles en route to the end zone. Farronato would score the game’s final touchdown on a keeper off tackle to make it a 55-13 final. “It feels amazing to be able to put a game together like that against Mount Carmel. I’m proud of all of my teammates,” Marzeski said.
Mount Carmel (4-2) will be heavy under-dogs again next week when they travel to undefeated North Schuylkill. Southern takes their perfect 6-0 mark to Warrior Run next week, and then will finish off the regular season with three straight home games. “Our mentality for the rest of the year has to be to keep the intensity up and continue to play physical. Coach Roth said that before the game, and I think if we keep doing that we will be fine,” said Klebon.
SCA: 21-21-13-0 = 55
MCA: 0-0-13-0 = 13
First quarter
SC — Hunter Thomas 55 run (Tyler Keiser kick), 9:28
SC — Matt Jeremiah 1 run (Keiser kick), 4:13
SC — Mike Klebon 65 pass from Nick Becker (Keiser kick), 2:30
Second quarter
SC — Becker 5 run (Keiser kick), 10:00
SC — Blake Marks 3 run (Keiser kick), 7:50
SC — Becker 7 run (Keiser kick), :19
Third quarter
SC — Jeremiah 27 run (Keiser kick), 6:21
MC — Blake Panko 13 run (Tom Belski kick), 4:00
SC — Billy Marzeski 33 run (kick blocked), 1:33
MC — Dominic Farronato 64 run (kick failed), 1:06
SCA vs MCA
First downs: 17 vs 10
Rushing yds: 44-327 vs 36-174
Passing: 4-7-1 vs 6-12-0
Passing yds: 105 vs 73
Total yds: 438 vs 247
Fumbles-lost: 0-0 vs 6-5
Penalties-yds: 7-54 vs 3-24
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING —
Southern Columbia:
Hunter Thomas 65-83, TD; Matt Jeremiah 11-67, 2 TD; Billy Marzeski 7-85, TD; Blake Marks 7-39, TD; Jarred Torres 3-43; Nick Becker 6-27, 2TD; Jacob Potter 2-12; Dylan Kranzel 1-3; Sami Abdul 1-3; Nic Fetterman 1-2; Justin Derk 1-(-2).
Mount Carmel:
Blake Panko 15-95, TD; Dominic Farronato 9-48, TD; Zach Zarkowski 3-20; Christian Kelley 1-11; Kyle Karycki 2-4; Treyvon White 1-2; Lane Tanney 2-2; Allen Yancoskie 2-(-2); Tom McDonald 1-(-6).
PASSING —
Southern Columbia: Becker 4-7-1, 105 yds, TD.
Mount Carmel: Farronato 5-10-0, 68 yds; McDonald 1-2-0, 5 yds
RECEIVING —
Southern Columbia:
Mike Klebon 1-65, TD; Thomas 1-25; Jeremiah 1-12; Marks 1-3.
Mount Carmel:
White 3-44; Juwan Sullins 1-20; Tanney 1-5; Kelley 1-4.
5 responses to “Beat Down at the Silver Bowl”
Some traditions die hard while others are lead down the road of destruction. To watch a coach scream and throw his arms in the air in disgust at his players is no way to get kids out to play, let alone go along with your scheme of things.Get some class first and the rest will return. A great tradition that is getting downgraded due to poor actions in the face of adversity by leadership.
Some people shouldn’t be allowed to comment! “Hall of fame idiot?” How many state championship’s do you have clown? Southern is a machine and not even berwick would argue they wouldn’t beat them… Look who mount Carmel has lost to!
A little harsh SuperFan286, but very true. I was at the Berwick game last night but after talking to some locals today, they said that it if the teams played each other 100 times, SCA would win everyone of them by at least 5 TD’s. As a local fan for so many years, it’s kind of depressing to see how bad of a football program the Tornadoes have become the past couple KC years. Let’s not forget that just over a decade ago they were winning state titles. Now they are just looking at scoring a TD!
Jim Roth: hall of fame coach
Carmy D: hall of fame idiot
Roth knows how to coach & to be classy. By the way Carmy, the whole stadium was impressed with your decision to keep in your starters to score on SCA’s third string. Do you really think your starters deserved to even come out of the locker room after halftime yet alone play until the finish!!!!
Looks like your days of doing snow angels after a fluke win are over with.
Worst MCA team in school history!