MOUNT CARMEL – It’s the type of performance that would have made Woody Hayes proud.
Except instead of three yards and a cloud of dust, it was more like six yards – 5.77 to be exact. That’s how many yards per carry Mount Carmel averaged on Friday, as the Red Tornados racked up 329 rushing yards on an astounding 57 carries and absolutely dominated the time of possession as Mount Carmel improved to 3-1 with a 21-7 win over Montoursville.
“From the start of the game, we grinded it out and set the tone,” said Mount Carmel coach John Darrah. “We did some things the first three weeks that shot ourselves in the foot a bit, so we were waiting for an outing like this to really hit our stride and that’s what we did tonight.
“It all came together. Earlier in the year, we had some guys that weren’t necessarily the most experienced and the line had to gel together a little bit, and this is usually the time of year when we hit our stride. We got some guys back healthy. We knew we were good, but we had to put it all together, and tonight, we put it together.”
Mount Carmel controlled the ball for over two-thirds of the game – 34:50 to just 13:10 for Montoursville – an advantage of over 21 minutes. The Red Tornados’ three scoring drives featured a combined 41 plays and over 21 minutes of possession. Mount Carmel’s three scoring drives went for 77, 90, and 87 yards, respectively.
“They executed really well. That’s a heck on an offense to stop when you have that size, and we aren’t as big upfront,” said Montoursville coach Mike Boughton. “All you can ask sometimes on defense is to get a team to drive the length of the field. They did that and did it consistently, so when you’re getting a team to drive the length, that’s all you can ask for, but we just couldn’t get the stops when we needed them.”
Montoursville had just 168 yards of total offense, of which 132 were rushing yards by Rocco Pulizzi on just 10 carries. However, 112 of those came on just two carries, 84 of which were on a touchdown run midway through the fourth quarter after Mount Carmel had gone up 21-0.
“It’s tough when you don’t have the ball much offensively, you can’t use all your offensive weapons,” said Boughton. “We struggled up front offensively as well and couldn’t get Maddix Dalena enough time blocking-wise and we just need to improve in those areas.”
Another 28 yards for Pulizzi came on a run midway through the second quarter after Montoursville took over at midfield following an interception by Matthew Conklin – the game’s only turnover. Montoursville then marched all the way to the Mount Carmel 1-yard line. But the Red Tornados put together a goal-line stand to keep the Warriors out of the end zone, and then proceeded to run out the clock on the first half and go into halftime with a 13-0 lead.
“It comes down to tackling execution,” said Darrah. “We had a great week of practice as far as executing what we wanted to do. They show a lot of formations and we knew we couldn’t have any busts and we knew we had to tackle and gang tackle them and we did that.”
That lead came as a result of two long drives in the first half. Julien Stellar helped lead the way for Mount Carmel’s rushing attack with 18 carries for 70 yards, and he scored Mount Carmel’s first two touchdowns on the Red Tornados’ first two possessions of the game. The Red Tornados took the opening kickoff and started at their own 23 and put together an 11-play, 77-yard drive – 10 of which were rushes – that took nearly half the first quarter, and Stellar capped it with a two-yard touchdown. Perhaps most impressive was that Mount Carmel faced only a single third down on that drive.
Montoursville was then forced to punt, and Mount Carmel took over at their own 10. This time, the Red Tornados put together an even longer drive, this one 12 plays, and 90 yards, all but one of which were rushes. Stellar capped it again with a nine-yard run early in the second quarter.
Montoursville went three-and-out after receiving the second-half kickoff, and from there, the Red Tornados put on probably the most impressive of their three scoring drives. They took over with 9:41 left in the third quarter and put together an 18-play, 87-yard drive, of which 17 plays were rushes, that was capped by Michael Farranato’s 15-yard touchdown run with 11:10 remaining in the fourth quarter.
“Sometimes, your offense can be your best defense and we really enjoyed the first half when we just held the ball most of the half,” said Darrah. “We’re going to run the ball so much, that’s part of our strength to keep it away from them, and we were able to execute that.”
Farranato was a big contributor in the running game as well, as he finished with 78 yards on 12 carries. Quarterback Pedro Feliciano led the way as he went for 139 yards on 17 carries. On the Red Tornados’ 18-play drive in the second half, Mount Carmel was 4-for-4 on third downs, and Feliciano converted on three of those, two on runs of his own and one on a pass completion. For the game, the Red Tornados converted on 10-of-12 third downs.
Mount Carmel 21, Montoursville 7
Montoursville (2-2) 0 0 0 7 – 7
Mount Carmel (3-1) 7 6 0 8 – 21
First-quarter
6:06 – (MC) Julien Stellar 2-yard run (Stellar kick), 11-77, 5:54
Second-quarter
10:48 – (MC) Julien Stellar 9-yard run (kick failed), 12-90, 5:20
Fourth-quarter
11:10 – (MC) Michael Farronato 15-yard run (Varano run), 18-87, 10:31
6:01 – (M) Rocco Pulizzi 84-yard run (PAT good), 1-84, :12
Statistics
M MC
First downs 5 24
Rushes-net yards 16-121 57-329
Passing yardage 47 30
Passing 7-10-0-0 4-6-0-1
Fumbles-lost 1-0 0-0
Penalties-yards 5-31 2-15
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Montoursville: Rocco Pulizzi (10-132-1), Maddix Dalena (3-(-11)), Marco Pulizzi (1-2), Brayden Brown (1-0), James Batkowski (1-(-2)); Mount Carmel: Julien Stellar (18-70-2), Pedro Feliciano (17-139), Michael Farronato (12-78-1), Garrett Varano (5-22), Ryan Weidner (3-12), Jacob Zarski (2-8)
PASSING — Montoursville: Maddix Dalena (7-10-47-0-0); Mount Carmel: Pedro Feliciano (4-6-30-0-1)
RECEIVING — Montoursville: Isaiah Fenner (2-18), James Batkowski (2-4), Marco Pulizzi (1-19), Nick Reeder (1-5), Brayden Brown (1-1); Mount Carmel: Matt Scicchitano (1-13), Michael Farronato (1-10), Cole Spears (1-5), Garrett Varano (1-2)
