Two of the perennial powerhouses in District 3 faced off for the third time in two seasons in West Lawn Friday Night. The 2011 PIAA 4A Champion Central Dauphin Rams and 2014 District 3 Champion Wilson Bulldogs. Wilson defeated CD twice last year, the second time to claim the District 3 title. Both squads are loaded once again in 2015. In a see-saw hard hitting battle, Central Dauphin snapped Wilson’s 30 game regular season winning streak by defeating the Bulldogs 20-19.
Clearly Central Dauphin had this game circled on their calendar the entire off season. Rams’ Head Coach Glen McNamee praised his coaches and players off season preparation as the reason for the victory. Assistant Coach Paul Lynn said, “We are happy to get out of here with a win.”
Wilson Head Coach Doug Dahm pointed to several mistakes that were his team’s undoing. “We had two touchdowns called back for only having six men on the line.” Botched snaps on a field goal and extra point proved costly to the Bulldogs as well.
The Rams’ Defense came up big all night. Twice in the first half they turned away Wilson scoring chances inside their own 10. They held Wilson to 16 yards rushing and had five QB sacks.
For Wilson So QB Collin Powers turned in a stellar performance. Powers was 25-38 for 339 yds and 2 TD’s
CD opened the scoring at the 6:50 mark of qtr one. Taking advantage of a short field they drove 45 yards for their first TD. Wilson came right back. A 95 yard drive mostly via the pass was capped by an Alex Twiford end zone plunge.
It was tied at 7 with 1:15 left in quarter 1. CD answered by moving right back down the field. QB AJ Millard’s one yard dive gave the lead back to CD 14-7.
The next two Wilson drives ended in red zone frustration. A turnover and a botched field goal snap left the Bulldogs with nothing to show for productive drives. The first half ended with CD leading 14-7.
Neither team could get much going after halftime. Then Wilson’s Adam Close intercepted a CD pass deep in Ram territory. On the next play Collin Powers hit Nick Zappone for a 17 yd TD.
A critical missed extra point kept CD in front 14-13 with 3:30 left in Quarter 3. Again both teams struggled to mount meaningful drives.
Finally, midway through Qtr 4, Wilson got things going. Powers hit Jon Fox from 23 yards and Wilson had their first lead 19-14 with 5:09 left A critical two point conversion failed.
On CD’s next possession it took only a little over a minute for The Rams to get back in front A lighting fast 83 yard drive was capped by a Reid Albright 10 yard run. CD was in front for good 20-19 with 3:53 left.
Clearly the District 3 playoffs will once again go through these two schools. CD now leads the series 4-3. CD and Wilson is becoming one of the top intersectional clashes in the PIAA. Both teams are focused on conference play.
CD goes for its fourth straight Mid Penn section 1 title opening at Chambersburg next week. Wilson goes for an amazing 8th straight Lancaster Lebanon section 1 title at McCaskey.
2 Responses
CD had a TD called back as well on a phantom clip. Wilson has 2 called back for procedural things (not judgment calls). The officials let a lot of holding go. The game was physical and Wilson is a tough team but CD won the physicality battle and the line of scrimmage and in turn the game.
You will not win many games when you have 2 td’s called back,miss an extra point,a 2pt conversion and a 25 yd fg.,especially against a team as good as CD,they had about 5 chances to win that game and uncharacteristically Wilson was very sloppy. CD is a good team but very vulnerable to the pass,they will have to fix that. CD knew that Dantzler wasn’t playing so they jammed 7 guys on the line all night,so Wilson adjusted and threw the ball all night,they really were the better team,however it is what it is. Sirb for CD had 91yds on 16 carries,but 32 of them were on his first carry of the game,he was controlled for most of the night.