By: Dave Fegley (Twitter: @DFegs9)
Bloomsburg head coach Mike Kogut gave Southern Columbia fullback Adam Feudale about as high of a praise as anybody could give a Tiger running back after Southern’s 49-14 victory over his Panthers. “He is just a tremendous athlete that has great balance for his size. He looks like kind of a mini Henry Hynoski by the way he hits the hole and how tough he is. He’s a hardnosed, old school, Coal Region football player,” Kogut said referring to Feudale. One thing that you can compare Feudale to Hynoski on is the touchdown outburst because Feudale became the first back since Hynoski to score five touchdowns in a single game. “Adam ran really hard and when the game got to the point that it wasn’t that comfortable for us it seemed like he just ran that much harder,” Southern head coach Jim Roth said. “He showed some real leadership by the way he played as a senior captain and I can say the same about some of the other seniors as well.” In total Feudale carried the ball 22 times for 183 yards and those five huge touchdowns.
Early on in the game it looked like the Tigers were going to beat the Panthers through the air. Quarterback Nick Becker found his favorite receiver, Luke Rarig, on third-and-long three different times for 87 yards. The first one was on a third and 20 which gave the Tigers a first down near midfield. On that opening possession the Tigers ran 18 plays before Feudale scored his first touchdown of the game from a yard out. That drive ate up nearly two-thirds of the opening quarter and the Tigers lead 7-0 after one quarter.
After forcing a three and out on the next possession, the Tigers offenses drove down the field and were threatening to score to go up by two scores. Nate Hunter looked like he was about to score, but the ball was knocked out of his hands and recovered by the Panthers. Southern didn’t allow Bloomsburg to get any momentum and forced another Panther punt. The Tigers drove down the field and this time Hunter found the end zone from four yards out to put the Tigers up 14-0. “I thought Nate Hunter and Matt Lupold both ran the ball hard as well and they certainly weren’t going down on the first hit,” said Roth. That duo combined to rush for 140 yards on the night to help Feudale out in the rushing column.
Southern looked like they were going to force another punt on the ensuing possession, but Sam Miller picked up 17 yards on a third down to give Bloomsburg a first down at the Tigers 33 yard line. On the next play, Bloomsburg’s Ricky Klingerman threw a touchdown pass to his cousin, Colby Klingerman, to cut the Southern lead in half. Bloomsburg gained some more momentum when there defense intercepted a Becker pass and Zach Ashford returned it to midfield and was hit late out-of-bounds to give the Panthers the ball in Southern territory. However, the stingy Tigers defense, which held Bloomsburg to less than 50 yards rushing on the night, came up with a 4th down stop and took over at their own 40 yard line with under two minutes to play in the half. On the third play of the drive, Feudale busted his way through the Panthers defense and scored on a 45 yard run right before the half to put the home Tigers ahead 21-7 at the half. “Now that it’s the playoffs you just have to keep your legs moving realizing that any game from this point on can be your last game,” said Feudale.
On the first drive of the second half, Southern Columbia’s Angelo Forti intercepted a pass and returned it deep inside Bloomsburg territory. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they were called for a roughing the passer penalty and the Panthers got the ball back. On the very next play, Klingerman connected with the other Klingerman again for a touchdown pass from 27 yards out to cut the Tigers lead in half. “I’m really proud of our kids and the way they played. Obviously Southern is an outstanding football team, but our kids believed that they could compete with them and I am proud of the way the guys played. We are certainly going to miss the seniors and hopefully the younger guys can build off of the way our seniors played,” said Kogut. That would be the final time that Bloomsburg was able to score against the number one ranked team in the state. From that point on, Feudale scored three more times to put the game out of reach for good. Matt Jeremiah scored the final touchdown of the game making the final score 49-14.
Obviously the Tigers are happy about the win, but they certainly need to play more disciplined from here on out if they plan on making it to Hershey. “When you aren’t playing your best football is when you allow a team like Bloomsburg to compete. They have a great group of skill players and at times we played sloppy football,” said Roth. Sloppy was an understatement when you look at the penalties that the Tigers committed. In all, they had eight penalties including six personal fouls for a total of 112 yards. The Tigers also committed some turnovers that could become very costly from this point forward. Nick Becker, who has been an impressive asset for the Tigers this season, finished the game completing only two more passes after the three early ones to Rarig, and he also threw two interceptions on drives that the Tigers were looking to put points on the board. “We were having some trouble getting the passing game going, but our offense works as a unit. The line did a good job in the second half blocking for our backs to get the running game going,” said Feudale. Southern also fumbled the ball twice giving them four turnovers in all. “We didn’t face too much adversity during the regular season, so tonight might actually turn out to be a good thing moving forward,” Roth stated. One thing that certainly could come out as a positive was allowing the starters to get a feel for playing into the fourth quarter since they were out near halftime of each game in the regular season. “I’m not really used to getting carries this late in games, but we just have to come out with more intensity for the rest of the year,” said Feudale.
Next Friday night the Tigers will be at home again as they take on South Williamsport who defeated Wellsboro in the other District IV semi-final. Southern will look to beat the Mounties for the second time this year and win an unbelievable 22nd district title in the last 23 seasons.
SCA: 7-14-14-14 = 49
Bloom: 0-7-7-0 = 14
SOUTHERN COLUMBIA (11-0)
RUSHING:
Adam Feudale 22-183, 5 TDs; Nate Hunter 9-75, TD; Matt Lupold 11-65; Blake Marks 10-42; Nick Becker 4-13; Brad Noll 2-19; Billy Marzeski 1-3; Matt Jeremiah 3-17, TD
PASSING:
Nick Becker 5-12-2, 105 yds
RECEIVING:
Luke Rarig 3-87; Garett Sosnoski 1-11; Nate Hunter 1-7
1st DOWNS: 28
PENALTIES: 8-112
BLOOMSBURG (6-5)
RUSHING:
Sam Miller 6-23; Hunter Thomas 2-14; Ricky Klingerman 8-9; Coty Kashner 1-4; Evan Ball 3-3; Tom Harrison 1-2; Tyson Thrush 2-(-9)
PASSING:
Ricky Klingerman 14-34-1, 166 yds, 2 TDs
RECEIVING:
Zach Ashford 8-59; Colby Klingerman 5-99, 2 TDs; Sam Miller 1-8
1st DOWNS: 12
PENALTIES: 6-44
Final Bloomsburg stats courtesy of Damien Scoblink (Press Enterprise)
6 Responses
A lot of the penalties last week were ridiculous. The late hit on fuedale when he leveled the guy who intercepted the pass. I think his grandkids grandkids will feel that hit. The roughing the QB on where the lineman intercepted the screen pass was horrible. A Bloom player received an academy award for flopping to the ground after coming out of a pile and drew a flag on SCA. It was an all around messy game for SCA, hopefully they got it out of their system now.
SCA must stay disciplined at all time, the penalties last week were crazy. We are our own worst enemy at times. Bragalone is a great back, but it takes a team to win any game when you are up against teams like Southern. He did get his stats last time long after our starters were pulled. That’s not how you build a quality program that performs year in and year out. Look at most schools, they run hot for a season or 2 and then cold for even longer.
South Williamsport is all Bragalone and that’s pretty much it. Stop Bragalone and thats the end of them. SCA pretty much did that the first meeting. Bragalone got a lot of garbage yards against their subs. Bragalone’s numbers are so ridiculously inflated due to him staying in games longer than he should or being brought back in after starters were out to get more yards. I expect another competition rule, but you never know. Bloom gave SCA fits for almost 3 quarters. Well I should say SCA gave SCA fits with lack of focus.
Let’s remember that this was Becker’s first post season game as a starter. I believe it is much tougher to face a quality opponent for the second time in a season. I have observed this a number of times over the years of watching high school football. Also, the fact that Bloomsburg lives by the pass offensively helps prepare their own defense in defending the pass as this is what they see at practice. Just look at the way Southern’s defense plays the running game. I would bet that the Panthers did the Tigers a HUGE favor by the way they played last night. SoCo actually faced some adversity last night, and I believe they rose to the occasion. They will NEED a great week of practice as I think South Williamsport will come into Tiger Stadium with a chip on their shoulder.
Becker certainly didn’t look confident throwing the ball tonight. One advantage he does have though is Luke Rarig on the outside. It seems like as long as the ball is in Rarig’s area, he will come down with it 9 times out of 10. I don’t think SCA will have any trouble next week against S. Williamsport and it should be a good game to get Hunter, Lupold, & Marks more involved in the offense. This way, Dunmore won’t be able to just key solely on Feudale the following week. It might also be a good game to allow Becker to run the ball as well because he is a big kid and seems like he can pick up some tough yards if he needs to. The best thing the tigers can do next week is run the ball as much as possible with all five players that play in the backfield. I think it will be a huge advantage for SCA if they can do that successful heading into the following weeks game. SCA should win the district championship by five or six TDs so there really isn’t any reason to throw at all. Give Becker’s arm a rest for a week and see of he can rebound once the state playoffs come around. Also, I think the Tigers should incorporate a little wild cat into the offense. Doubt Roth would do it, but just a thought!
I thought tonight showed that the Tigers have some areas that teams like Dunmore or Old Forge can take advantage of. First off, they committed a lot of dumb penalties after the play. A few players are lucky that they didn’t get ejected. Also, I think tonight proved that if teams can stop Southern’s running game then they have a great shot at winning. Becker looked decent early on in the season, but now has thrown a lot of interceptions over the last month or so according to some of the local papers statistics. It was only the second time I have seen the team play, but Adam Feudale is a great back for the Tigers to lean on from this point forward. He fights for extra yardage on every carry and I don’t think he was brought down by less than three Panthers on any of his carries. He certainly showed that he doesn’t want his career to come to an end. Also, any word on the Tillett kid? He looked banged up and didn’t play at all in the second half from what I remember. Who will the Tigers stick in on defense in his absence if he can’t play?