Central Mountain handles Williamsport, 46-0

WILLIAMSPORT – Nobody saw this one coming.

Not Steve Turchetta, Tom Gravish, the fans or even the band.

Central Mountain’s Matt Overdorf found the end zone four times, and the Wildcats unleashed a flurry similar to Hurricane Hanna’s strength on Williamsport in a 46-0 victory Friday night on the road.

All of CM’s points came in the first half – 34 of which came in the second quarter.

“They played with a lot of heart and were up to the challenge of coming down here to Williamsport,” Wildcat head coach Turchetta said. “Everybody was playing this up as the game of the week, and our kids came to play. Defense came out and was down a bit in the first then got that underneath them. The offense came out and just made those big plays again, and it steamrolled from there.”

Big plays might be an understatement.

The Wildcats put the ball in paydirt both times they touched it in the first half. Overdorf was on the end of both tallys, the first being a 13-yard run after a drive from the CM 31. On the Wildcats’ next possesion, the senior running back caught a tipped pass from Cody Dolan and shot down the field 41 yards – using a nice juke move at the 20-yard line to scoot around a Williamsport blocker and into the end zone.

The second quarter was more of the same, with the defense doing its job to perfection.

“It makes us feel pretty good,” said Overdorf of his team’s performance. “The line was doing good and the coaches were calling good plays and everything. It definitely does feel good. We are a good team, and we just have to see how things play out.

“(Turchetta) was a little bit mad about giving up the points last week, but the thing that he liked about it was that we didn’t just hang our heads. We came back and responded to him a little bit. It was just all of us. It was a big motivation to just build upon everything.”

Central Mountain ran 18 plays in the first half and scored on five of them, averaging paydirt almost every fourth play.

That stat isn’t something Gravish payed any attention to, nor does the Williamsport head coach probably want to know.

“The Central Mountain kids played hard. I knew they were a good team,” the second-year head coach said. “We didn’t have a very good practice (Thursday), and we had a lackluster practice on Wednesday. I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to play, you have to have the right frame of mind from your practices.

“It’s embarassing. We are capable of playing a lot better than that. That isn’t the team that we are. Yes, we lost a couple people from last week’s game that are emotional leaders. They should be back next week. Give the Central Mountain kids credit because they played hard. They have good, tough kids. They didn’t do anything fancy, and they just played hard. The bottom line is, we didn’t play hard and we didn’t play with enough effort.”

Williamsport signal-caller Michael Person threw two interceptions – one to Logan Houtz which the Wildcat put in the end zone from 37 yards out – and the other to Zuback, which eventually led to a Dolan pass to Overdorf for CM’s final score of the half. The other interception came on a pass play by Nahshon Braggs, who threw right to Blaine Counsil.

“You have to look at everything,” Turchetta said. “You look at the one-two punch with Overdorf and Zuback, and that whole thing. You can’t concentrate on just one thing or person, which helps out a lot. I hate to single just one person out, because they all played so well. Zuback ran well, Overdorf ran hard, and they all are playing well right now.

“There were some shades early. I think coach Gravish came out early with a gameplan to attack us. I think he saw some things from Jersey Shore, but the difference was we didn’t break. We bent a little bit, but we kept things in front of us. I thought we were much better this week.”

Dolan ended the night 7-for-8 with 137 yards and two TDs, while Person came up with 88 yards passing. Nick Turchetta had one pass for nine yards. Overdorf rushed for 59 yards on 10 carries, while Zuback had two for 35 yards.

CM had 289 yards of offense to Williamsport’s 175, and the Millionaires had four fumbles, all of which they recovered.