By BILL ALBRIGHT
EasternPAFootball.com Senior Writer
JERSEY SHORE — During the first four weeks of the season, the Mifflinburg football team ran into four quality teams. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they came out on the short of the final score in three of the four games.
Friday night at Thompson Street Stadium, things didn’t get any better for the ‘Cats as they ran into unbeaten Jersey Shore and dropped a 41-6 decision to the defending District IV Class AAA champs.
“I am very proud of the overall effort we got from our kids tonight,” said Mifflinburg head coach Jason Dressler. “The kids definitely came to play and they played four quarters the best they could. Hats off to Jersey Shore because they are a solid football team in all aspects of the game.”
Suffering through injuries that most teams do at some point in the season, Dressler and his staff were forced into the situation of using a lot of “new” players.
“We had a lot of new faces on the field, fresh faces rotating in there,” said Dressler. “They gave everything they had.”
Although the Bulldogs won easily going away, they did what a good football team does, and that is, bounce back from your mistakes to make good things happen. Shore turned the ball over four times, twice on interceptions and two more times on lost fumbles.
“We made some mistakes, but the guys know there are several things we need to clean up on a whole bunch of avenues,” said Shore head coach Tom Gravish. “I really liked our overall effort because everybody was saying that after last week’s emotional win, this was the ‘trap’ week for us. I really liked the resiliency and focus of our team during the week. I didn’t hear them (Shore players) mention one thing all week about last week’s game. We were only interested in Mifflinburg and the kids did an outstanding job of staying focused.”
If there was one thing that hampered the efforts of the Wildcats, especially in the first half, it was inconsistency on offense that resulted in four punts and a pair of turnovers.
“You get something going and then a turnover and that hurts,” Dressler said. “When that happens, it takes the wind out of your sails and you have to build it back up. Finding out what works and what doesn’t work caused us to struggle, especially early in the game. We were trying to find some things to make things happen. We did execute some things, but in the end, we just didn’t have things go our way tonight.”
The Bulldogs struck for three scores in the first half on a 19-yard TD aerial from quarterback Logan English to Dominic Loffredo and a second scoring connection between English and Derek Leese that covered 16 yards. Sandwiched in between the two aerial connections for the scores was a 6-yard burst into the end zone by Bulldog junior tailback Levi Lorson.
For the game, Lorson finished with 223 yards on 38 carries and the touchdown, while English, despite throwing a pair of picks, finished with 154 yards good for three scores.
“Our running game was going real well tonight and that was good to see,” said Gravish. “We have a good bunch of tough (offensive) linemen in there and they did an outstanding job of opening holes. Right now our line is playing real hard. Levi ran real hard and Bryce (Charles) is threw some unbelievable blocks.”
Trailing 20-0 with a mere three seconds left in the first half, the ‘Cats realized their biggest offensive play of the night when Brian Zimmerman got behind the Shore secondary and Jordan Wagner hit him in stride for a 52-yard scoring strike as time ran out.
“That was just something we wanted to do,” said Dressler. “It was something we saw right away and at that point, what do you have to lose because you only have three seconds left so we just went for it. Jordan put it up there and Brian got it.”
With some momentum of the last-second scoring play to end the first half on their side, the Wildcats took the second half kickoff and proceeded to engineer a drive that carried deep into Shore territory.
However, that is where Bulldog safety Brody Smith stepped in front of a Wagner aerial for a “pick” to stop the drive.
“When you are playing real solid teams like Shore, you can’t turn the ball over and expect to win,” said Dressler. “You have to minimize your penalties and turnovers to give yourselves a chance to win and we just didn’t do that tonight.”
When the drive stalled following the Smith interception, the Bulldog defensive unit took over as Hunter Letterman blocked a Mifflinburg punt and Chris Bashaw recovered the block in the end zone for a quick six. On the heels of Letterman’s defensive play, Ethan Kutza, who recently returned to the Shore lineup following a concussion, picked up a Wildcat fumble and returned it 19 yards for a touchdown.
“We have a bunch of guys who can play some defense,” said Gravish. “We gave up that one score right before the half and nobody likes when that happens, but we’ll learn from it.”
Shore capped the scoring in the game early in the fourth period when English hit Leese from 23 yards out for the game’s final score.
Now 1-4, the Wildcats return home to host a tough task in Selinsgrove Friday night, while the Bulldogs (5-0) take to the highways to Shamokin for a battle with the Indians.
MIFF 0 6 0 0 — 6
JS 6 14 7 14 — 41
First Quarter
JS — Dominic Loffredo 19 pass from Logan English. (kick failed), 1:17
Second Quarter
JS — Levi Lorson 6 run. (pass failed), 7:16.
JS — Derek Leese 16 pass from English (English rush). :24
M — Brian Zimmerman 52 pass from Jordan Wagner. (kick failed)
Third Quarter
JS — Chris Bashaw recovered blocked punt in end zone. (Colby Koch kick), 4:11
Fourth Quarter
JS — Ethan Kutza 19 fumble return. (Koch kick), 11:11.
JS — Leese 23 pass from English. (Koch kick), 8:10
Team Statistics MIFF JS
First Downs 10 24
Rushes-Yards 25-10 59-315
Passing Yards 197 154
Passing 12-29-3 8-16-2
Penalties-Yards 4-30 10-100
Fumbles-Lost 2-1 3-2
Individual Statistics
Rushing
MIFF: Clayton Sheesley 2-29, Eric Stroup 8-18, Dylan Maneval 2-5, Kyle Gessner 1-3, Tyler Stolzfus 1-minus 6, Brayden Pierce 6-minus 7, Jordan Wagner 5-minus 32.
JS: Levi Lorson 38-223, 1 TD; Logan English 8-37, Travis Bradley 3-23, Bryce Charles 5-21, Zach Miller 1-4, Chase Brain 2-4, Jarett Guthrie 2-3.
Passing
MIFF: Jordan Wagner 12-29, 197 yards, 3 interceptions, 1 TD.
JS: Logan English 8-16, 154 yards, 2 interceptions, 3 TDs.
Receiving
MIFF: Brian Zimmerman 5-119, 1 TD; Tristan Martin 5-67, Brayden Pierce 1-7, Eric Stroup 1-4.
JS: Brody Smith, 3-66; Derek Leese 2-39, 2 TDs; Dominic Loffredo 2-31, 1 TD; Travis Bradley 1-18.
