Bishop Guilfoyle Overcomes Mistakes, Defeats Old Forge to Return to Single A Title Game

The Marauders of Bishop Guilfoyle had not found themselves in the situation they did Friday night at Kemp Stadium in Shamokin since the 2013 season. Trailing 13 -10 at halftime, it didn’t look any better to start the third as BG found themselves pinned at their own eight-yard line after forcing Old Forge to punt on their first possession of the second half.

Evan Chadbourn looked out over the defense from the wildcat position, saw the receiver to his left, had man coverage and after the snap he launched a perfect rainbow to Sam Keating at the 25. Keating did the rest, going 92 yards, one play, touchdown. BG pulled away after taking the lead, scoring 40 unanswered points with touchdown passes to three different receivers from three different passers to return to the Single A title game in Hershey.

The Blue Devils held most of the momentum in the first half of the game with a pounding, inspired effort that seemed to have the Marauders on the ropes, when they opened the game on defense and forced BG to a three and out on the first possession of the game. Jaret Horn took the punt at the 21 and returned it 79 yards to give Old Forge an early lead. The point after was no good keeping the score 6-0.

BG managed to scrape and drive to the 22, but there the Blue Devil defense stiffened up, forcing a 39-yard field goal attempt by freshman kicker Colton Mcghee. He had no problem making the score 6-3 with 5:10 left in the first quarter.

The Blue Devil’s QB, Joey Gutowski, who was playing with a leg injury from last week’s game, led his team right back to the end zone. Completing three of four passes on the drive, (two on third down situations) he got his team to the five-yard line where Cooper Califano finished the drive on a run to the left side. Old Forge had the BG crowd stunned with 11:16 left in the first half and a 13-3 lead.

The Marauders made their first miscue of the half when Aaron Yasulitis was hit and lost the ball. Old Forge recovered but was forced to punt. It took one play for the Marauders to get themselves back in the game. Josh Tryus made a move on a defender and hit Evan Chadbourn for a 73-yard touchdown connection. The kick was good but BG still trailed. “If we didn’t give up that play there, we may be talking about something different. With the touchdown pass there, we had a clear shot, Trybus spun out and made a throw,” said Blue Devil Head Coach Mike Shuback.

The Bishop Guilfoyle offense nearly put itself in a hole they may not have been able to climb out of as Chadbourn fumbled and Armando Sallavanti recovered for the Blue Devils at the BG 22. The the Marauder defense held with a Trybus interception on fourth down. “That stop was HUGE. It gave us big momentum at the half and we just told our team at the break to just focus, stop making mistakes and missed tackles and play, ” said BG head coach Justin Wheeler.

Following the go ahead touchdown, Old Forge lined up at their own 17. Gutowski dropped back to pass and the ball slipped from his hands. He managed to hold on but was dropped for a big loss by big Logan Mcgeary. Old Forge was forced to punt giving BG the ball at the 46.

A Chadbourn 19-yard run followed by a Trybus to Frederick touchdown pass of eight yards was the beginning of the end for the Blue Devil season as Bishop Guilfoyle seized any and all momentum there was left to take and began to pull away.  On their very next possession, Trybus again hit Frederick, this time for a nine-yard score to make it 31-13. Trybus would get a one yard touchdown and Andrew Irwin closed out the scoring with a 48 yard touchdown run.  Chadbourn had 142 yards rushing while the BG offense combined for 251 yards passing for four scores.

“They made big big plays. If we scored before the half it’s a different story,” said Shuback. “We thought we did a good job, bottled up Chadbourn early there in the game.”

“Effort, trust, just do what we do. Our passing game has been good all year. We haven’t had a chance to show that. As coaches you tend to play tight, but once we opened them up it went well,” said Wheeler. “Our goal all year has been to return to Hershey. We’ll have no problem getting these boys fired up for that game.”

The Marauders will face the Farrell Steelers, a 26-21 winner over Berlin-Brothersvalley, in the Single A State Title Game Friday, December 18th at 1 p.m. at Hersheypark Stadium.