Canton Area wins back-and-forth battle with South Williamsport with late TD pass

Written by: Matt Beltz on Saturday, August 31st, 2024. Follow Matt Beltz on Twitter.

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT – Canton and South Williamsport have combined for the last three District 4 Class A titles, with each making a trip to the state semifinals in each of those years. And on their respective ways toward the state’s final four over the last year seasons, have played a handful of memorable contests against one another.

While the teams won’t be able to meet in the postseason this year with South Williamsport bumping up to 2A this year, Saturday morning’s contest was another hard-fought classic. Postponed from Thursday night due to thunderstorms, the game was a back and forth slugfest, with Canton coming out on top 17-8.

“Canton expects to win now. The program has kind of made that step and every game we come in expecting to win,” said Canton coach Tyler Sechrist. “We didn’t play the best, had a lot of yards of penalties including some crucial ones, made some mistakes and didn’t make plays when we needed to, but we played well enough to win this game. The 10 am game was unusual, I think our kids came out a little slow and had a lot of mental mistakes that we usually don’t have, but they played mentally tough.

“We’ve had some really good battles with these guys. These are two tough programs. Troy is our rival, but this is starting to feel like a rival, too. It’s always a physical battle and we’re usually handing it off and running it right at each other.”

The difference in the game was largely turnovers, as South Williamsport had four to Canton’s two. One of those led directly to Canton’s first touchdown of the game, two others stalled a South drive in Canton territory, and another effectively sealed the game for the Warriors late in the fourth quarter.

“You have to play clean. You can’t turn the ball over, so we’ll need to go back and make some adjustments in practice,” said South coach Chris Eiswerth. “I thought we made some nice stops defensively but credit to Canton. They played clean and played hard. So, it’s back to the drawing board. We’re playing 5-7 freshmen, so the future is bright and we just need to weather the storm and they’re growing. Our backfield is two freshmen and a sophomore, so we’re still going to have a lot of great opportunities to grow and improve and have some good things occur. Sometimes you need to just learn from your mistakes and learn from just doing it.”

Further showing that the turnovers made the difference, the teams were nearly even in total yards – Canton with 215 and South with 210 – although South held an advantage in time of possession, holding the ball for 26:40 to 21:20 for Canton, including a 16:40 to 7:20 edge in the first half. South also ran more plays than Canton, 57-46.

“I took a few gambles defensively on whether they were passing or running because they have a good mix now with Dylan Scheller at receiver, so we switching up our defense based on what we thought was coming, putting more guys in the box in certain situations and we had some different calls because we know how tough South Williamsport is and how well they run the ball, so we knew we had to stop that.”

Canton didn’t record a first down until the 8:52 mark of the second quarter, and it resulted in the first score of the game, as on a fourth-and-10 play from the South 19, Ben Fitch scrambled away from trouble and found Zack Colton for the touchdown.

On South’s ensuing drive, the Mounties drove it to the Canton 36, but Tadd Lusk was picked off by Dawson Burgess at the 33, who returned it for a touchdown but it was wiped off the board due to an illegal block penalty.

Canton then fumbled the ball away at midfield on its subsequent possession, and South took over and advanced the ball all the way down to the Canton 25 before Lusk was picked off for the second time on the afternoon, this time by Rylan Wesneski at the Canton 23.

The Warriors then drove the ball down to the South 20 with under a minute to play in the half, but that drive ended when Fitch was picked off at the South 6 by Caleb Johnson, ensuring it would be just a one possession game at the half.

Canton was able to extend its lead to 10-0 late in the third quarter on Alexis McRoberts’ 22-yard field goal, which capped a short drive that started in positive territory at the South 42. McRoberts, who is Canton’s regular kicker and also plays on the co-op soccer program at Troy, arrived shortly before halftime following a morning soccer game at Montoursville and handled all kicking duties in the second half.

South was able to answer and finally capitalize on moving the ball deep into Canton territory on its ensuing drive, as the Mounties went 73 yards in 14 plays, capped by a six-yard touchdown run by Jayden Hamm, who was one of three freshman that saw the majority of the carries out of the Mountie backfield. A successful two-point conversion made it 10-8 with 8:07 remaining in the game.

But Canton answered back with its most impressive and longest drive of the game. Following the ensuing kickoff going out of bounds, the Warriors took over at their own 43 to start, then went 57 yards in nine plays, while chewing up nearly four minutes of the clock. Fitch found Bailey Gardner for a 35-yard touchdown on a third-and-16 play that looked either like a delayed screen or a broken play, and Gardner eluded defenders on his way down the left sideline for the score.

Holding a two-possession lead after McRoberts’ successful PAT, Canton sealed the win with Fitch’s interception of Lusk at the Canton 36 with 3:18 remaining, and the Warrior ran out the clock from there.

Canton 17, South Williamsport 8
Canton (2-0) 0 7 3 7 – 17
South Williamsport (1-1) 0 0 0 8 – 8

Second quarter
8:52 – (C) Zack Colton 19-yard pass from Ben Fitch (Pepper kick), 4-19, 2:11

Third quarter
2:04 – (C) Alexis McRoberts 22-yard field goal, 6-36, 2:12

Fourth quarter
8:07 – (SW) Jayden Hamm 6-yard run (Scheller pass from Lusk), 14-73, 5:57
4:25 – (C) Bailey Gardner 35-yard pass from Ben Fitch (McRoberts kick), 9-57, 3:42

Statistics
C SW
First downs 8 15
Rushes-net yards 35-125 37-113
Passing yardage 90 97
Passing 6-11-2-1 8-20-0-3
Fumbles-lost 2-1 2-1
Penalties-yards 14-96 6-43

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Canton: Ben Fitch (15-52), Bailey Gardner (9-52), Aydin Holcomb (4-22), Holden Ward (4-3), TEAM (3-(-4)); South Williamsport: Jayden Hamm (15-55-1), Cade Lusk (9-36), Tad Lusk (7-19), Eli White (5-(-3)), Dylan Scheller (1-6)
PASSING: Canton: Ben Fitch (6-11-90-2-1); South Williamsport: Tad Lusk (8-20-97-0-3)
RECEIVING: Canton: Zack Colton (3-21-1), Bailey Gardner (1-35-1), Holden Ward (1-32), Aydin Holcomb (1-2); South Williamsport: Dylan Scheller (6-70), Caleb Johnson (1-14), Eli White (1-13)

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