Ligonier pulls away from Dunmore to advance to Semifinals in 39-19 win

Adversity is something almost every good team faces at least once in a season. Up to this point, the Rams of Ligonier Valley hadn’t seen themselves on the losing end in any game. The Bucks had just scored on a six-yard TD pass from quarterback Gavin Darcy to Jordan Petrowski to go up 13-10 giving the Rams their first deficit of the season. That drive was created by an interception by Michael Dougherty of Dunmore that gave the Bucks the ball at the Ligonier nine.

Following that score, Ligonier was forced to punt. Dunmore’s Steve Borgia muffed the punt and Ram Zachary Beitel pounced on the ball setting his team up at the Bucks 10, but Ligonier quarterback Collin Smith threw an interception in the end zone. “We were upset about that. We didn’t capitalize on that,” said Head Coach Roger Beitel. “You have to capitalize on that.”

The Rams didn’t give up and after forcing a three and out, Smith led his team on a 58-yard drive that ended with Jackson Daugherty catching the go ahead score from 13 yards out. They never looked back and the Rams will move on to play the winner of tomorrow’s Southern Columbia/Schuylkill Haven game in the 2A Semifinals.

The game started with Ligonier driving to the Dunmore five but the drive stalled, forcing a 22-yard field goal from Kobe Short. The Rams led 3-0 with 8:20 remaining in the first quarter. The Ram defense held tough and forced a punt. Smith capped the next drive with a six-yard run to make it 10-0.

Dunmore struck right back on their next drive, going 68 yards. Colin Holmes raced 39 yards to paydirt making it a 10-7 game at the 1:22 point of the first. Following the go ahead score, another Dunmore miscue gave the Rams the ball at the Bucks 14. Three plays later Daugherty caught his second of three touchdowns of the night to give the Rams a 23-13 lead going into the locker room at halftime. “That was a big thing for us. Get that turnover, capitalize, and score knowing we were going to get the ball in the second half,” said Beitel.

Ligonier took the second half kickoff and marched straight to the end zone. The Rams used two inside handoffs to move the ball into Buck territory. Smith drove his team to the nine where Short hit his second field goal of the night making it 26-13.

Dunmore committed another turnover when Daugherty intercepted Darcy at the Ram 26 and returned it to the 30. Ligonier drove 70 yards in a long 15 play drive, capping it with Daugherty’s third TD, a six-yard strike. Trent Hepner closed out the scoring on a 35-yard TD pass from Smith. “I have extreme confidence in my receivers. Jackson is a phenomenal player. He just goes up and gets the balls. When he’s in one on one, he’s just hard for the defense to cover because of his height and speed,” said Smith.

Smith threw for four touchdowns and nearly 370 yards. Daugherty was on the receiving end of 12 of those throws for 148 yards. “Adversity. You gotta come out and face adversity and weather the storm. Coach said we’d have ups and downs and we just had to overcome them,” said Daugherty.

Dunmore was held to only five plays in the third quarter. Elijah Parrish said, “I told our defense I don’t like this. Our defense, we said no to them there.”