Indians Earn Big Homecoming Win

COAL TOWNSHIP – The Shamokin Indians defended their home turf well Friday night, earning a big 57-27 victory on homecoming weekend over the visiting Shikellamy Braves.

The Braves took the short jaunt out route 61 looking to pick up their second victory of the season, but a stout all-around performance put the game out of reach early on.

The visiting Indians won the toss and chose to receive, but after a quick three-and-out turned the ball right over to the home team.

On the opening offensive play of the game, Shamokin quarterback Brett Nye dropped back and found an open Wisdom Artis-Jones down the field for a 38-yard touchdown. Nye – who had returned from injury to play in the game – came back out with a bang early.

“To come out and score the first play of the game and grab that momentum is crazy.” said Nye. “We really knew that we could run up the score from then on. It was really helpful.”

“Coming out we had the mindset that we were going to score early,” added Artis-Jones on the opening-play touchdown. “We wanted to come out firing and we did that.”

Shamokin kept their foot on the gas pedal, forcing a second three-and-out on the ensuing possession before a blocking the Shikellamy punt.

Working with a short field again, Shamokin was able to find its way to the endzone. After striking quick on a pass play for the first touchdown, the Indians decided to establish the run on the second drive. After a few nice carries by Knowledge Artis-Jones, Nye connected with Wisdom again for a 23-yard gain on a fourth-and-six play to extend the drive. This big gain put the ball on the Braves two-yard line where Knowledge punched the ball in for his first of three rushing scores on the night.

Two plays later Shamokin was able to get possession back when a fumble was recovered by senior defensive lineman Chris Dinoia. Another quick strike by Nye – this one to Ryder Zulkowski – put the Indians up three scores less than 10 minutes into the game.

“We came out swinging” said Nye about his team’s fast start. “Our o-line, our running backs, our pass game has been very effective. We’ll try to keep the ball rolling and have a great rest of the season.”

The Shamokin defense held Shikellamy to -15 yards of offense through the Braves’ first eight drives of the night.

“I give a bunch of credit to our defense tonight,” said Nye. “Defense wins championships and they do a heck of a job keeping the score low and giving us momentum on offense.”

“Coach told us this week not to let anyone score and that’s what we did.” added Artis-Jones. “We made sure we were doing everything right and we executed.”

The Indians scored again later by taking advantage of another Shikellamy turnover. This time, a short pass was intercepted by Wisdom Artis-Jones when a Shikellamy wide receiver fell down on the play. The interception led to Knowledge Artis-Jones’ second rushing touchdown of the night, scoring from six yards out on just the fourth play of the drive.

Two plays later another interception thrown by Shikellamy turned into points when Chase Pensyl jumped a route and took the ball 43-yards back for another Shamokin score to put the home Braves up 36-0 in the opening half.

Shikellamy’s final drive before the half finally resulted in some positive plays. A 28-yard run by Isaac Shaffer-Neitz got the Braves their first first-down of the night. Then just three plays later it was Schaffer-Neitz again, breaking free for a 59-yard score to put the Braves on the scoreboard.

Any celebration was short-lived however, as with 1:03 remaining in the half, Shamokin put together a seven-play, 77-yard drive that resulted in points as the halftime horn sounded. Nye completed five consecutive passing attempts on the drive, the last of which went to Zulkowski for his second receiving touchdown of the night.

Shamokin opened the second half with the football as well and scored yet again on just a three-play drive. A huge kick return to open the second half happened when Pensyl got the ball and broke free down the right sideline. Fielding the ball at his own 10-yard line, Pensyl followed his blocks to take the ball all the way back to the Shikellamy 27-yard line. Three plays later Knowledge Artis-Jones scored his third rushing touchdown of the game.

Shikellamy collected a touchdown on its ensuing drive when senior running back Matt Shaffer made a house call on his first touch of the game, going 68 yards for a score.

Big plays kept happening for the Braves as the second half wore on. Quarterback Lucas Wetzel came on after an injury to the game’s starting quarterback Ethan Turber-Ortiz and threw a strike to halfback Luke Snyder down the middle of the field. Snyder made defenders miss and took the ball 40 yards for a score.

In the game’s final quarter, Chase Morgan also broke free and scored a long touchdown for the Braves. On the first play of the Braves’ final offensive drive of the game Morgan broke free on a 71-yard run to give the Braves their 27^thpoint of the night.

Despite being limited to 71 yards of offense in the first half, Shikellamy finished the game with 233 yards of offense on the ground while Wetzel added 71 through the air, including a touchdown to give the Braves a total of 304 total yards of offense.

Schaffer-Neitz led all running backs in the game with 118 rushing yards. He picked that yardage up on just 10 carries and found the endzone once.

Nye was the biggest playmaker for Shamokin, throwing for three touchdowns on nine completions for 162 yards. Knowledge Artis-Jones led the Indians in rushing attempts, carrying the ball 16 times for 71 yards and three touchdowns, but Corey Adams led all Indians in rushing yardage, toting the ball seven times for a whopping 86 yards.

The victory for the Indians pushed Shamokin back to .500 on the season at 3-3 overall. They face a tough task next week, traveling to undefeated Jersey Shore (6-0) to take on the Bulldogs.

Shikellamy dropped to 1-5 overall this season and heads home this coming Friday to take on a tough Mifflinburg team (5-1).