SHICKSHINNY – Four turnovers in a game, much less a single half of football, will usually doom a team.
That’s just what happened to Northwest on Friday, as the Rangers fumbled away the opening kickoff, and then committed three more turnovers before halftime.
And North Penn Mansfield took advantage of all four. The Tigers, which had scored a grand total of just 32 points in its first three games of the season en route to an 0-3 start, scored 25 points off Northwest’s four turnovers in the first half and doubled their season point total for the game as they picked up their first win of the year with a 39-15 victory over the Rangers.
“It always feels good to win but it was great to see how much better our team has gotten from the scrimmage to week 1, week 2, week 3 to now,” said North Penn Mansfield coach Jed Wright. “I think that’s almost more exciting than just winning, is how much better we’ve gotten as a team.”
The opening kickoff was an omen of what was to come as Northwest fumbled it away, giving North Penn Mansfield the ball at the Ranger 19-yard line just :02 into the game. There appeared to be some indecision as to who should field the kick, and once the decision was made, Loegan Diltz was unable to pick it up off the turf cleanly with North Penn Mansfield defenders bearing down on him.
Four plays later, on a fourth-and-4, Karson Dominick found Cooper Shaw in the corner of the end zone, who used his height advantage over the Northwest cornerback to haul in a 13-yard touchdown pass.
“Opening play we don’t field a kick, two picks, two fumbles – you can’t do that against a team that can score and is explosive, so that hurt us,” said Northwest coach Leigh Bonzcewski. “We’re just so young, still. We’re trying to get better but we took a couple of steps back this week. We cleaned up the turnovers for a couple of weeks but they came back to bite us again today.
“I thought we had a really good week of practice, but they have some really good skill kids and we just had a lot of young-kid mistakes. We lost eight starters from last year, so we’re just so young at certain positions. We’re trying to get them up to speed to play and it’s a tough road.
Northwest was able to answer right away, as the Rangers put together a seven-play, 52-yard drive capped by a Adam Chonko 1-yard run on fourth-and-goal to even things midway through the first quarter.
But from that point, North Penn Mansfield made it very difficult for the Rangers, who only managed 100 yards of offense for the remainder of the game, 57 of which came on their other touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.
The Rangers forced a punt on the Tigers’ next drive as North Penn Mansfield was called for back-to-back intentional grounding penalties, but a 44-yard punt pinned the Rangers deep in their own territory at their 14.
Cale Wagner ended Northwest’s drive by picking off Jace McCoy and returning it 19 yards. Dominick then hit Luke Kreger for a 28-yard touchdown reception to put the Tigers up 13-7 late in the first quarter.
Northwest then fumbled the ball away again on the first play of its ensuing possession, giving North Penn Mansfield another gift with the ball at the Ranger 29. The Tigers needed eight plays, but still managed to capitalize, as they converted a fourth-and-9 with Dominick hitting Wagner for a 15-yard reception, and Dominick punched it in on a quarterback sneak from a yard out to make it 19-7 early in the second quarter.
Later in the second, McCoy was picked off again, this time by Dominick near midfield. The Tigers then turned to the ground to do their damage, as George Perry burst through the line of scrimmage and into the secondary, where he outran the rest of Northwest’s defenders for a 56-yard touchdown run to make it 25-7 heading into halftime.
“Taking advantage of turnovers was something we focused on this week so it’s good for us coaches and the kids to see something that we stressed in practice this week work itself out in the game,” said Wright.
Perry found the end zone for a second time as his 18-yard touchdown run capped a 53-yard drive on North Penn Mansfield’s opening drive of the second half, giving them a 33-7 lead. Perry finished with 126 yards on the ground for the Tigers on just 10 carries to go with his two scores.
After having much success through the air early, the Tigers only threw the ball once in the second half, as they went to the ground game and were largely successful. They had 114 rushing yards in the second half but had only 44 yards on the ground prior to Perry’s long touchdown run late in the first half.
“We made some moves to take the pass away but that weakened us a little bit against the run, and trying to play from behind isn’t easy,” said Bonzcewski.
Dominick finished with 150 passing yards on 10-of-15 throwing along with his two touchdown passes.
“Our goal is to have an offense where the running game compliments the passing game and vice versa,” said Wright. “It’s important to be balanced and it definitely helps to be able to run the ball when you have a lead and milk that clock.”
The Tigers made it 39-7 with their longest drive of the game, a nine-play, 61-yard sequence that spanned 5:56 and was capped by Wagner’s one-yard touchdown with 9:01 left in the game.
Northwest tacked on a late touchdown when McCoy hit Andrew Bonzcewski for a 25-yard touchdown pass with 5:18 left in the game.
In between the third and fourth quarters, the stadium observed a moment of silence and both teams came together at midfield and held up four fingers in support of Max Engle and the Jersey Shore community.
North Penn Mansfield 39, Northwest 15
North Penn Mansfield (1-3) 13 12 8 6 – 39
Northwest (1-3) 7 0 0 8 – 15
First quarter
9:48 – (NPM) Cooper Shaw 13-yard pass from Karson Dominick (Dominick kick), 4-19, 2:10
6:19 – (NW) Adam Chonko 1-yard run (Miller kick), 7-52, 3:29
:50 – (NPM) Luke Kreger 28-yard pass from Karson Dominick (kick failed), 3-43, 1:22
Second quarter
9:36 – (NPM) Karson Dominick 1-yard run (kick blocked), 8-29, 3:00
1:06 – (NPM) George Perry 56-yard run (pass failed), 3-57, :30
Third quarter
9:00 – (NPM) George Perry 18-yard run (Perry run), 6-53, 3:00
Fourth quarter
9:01 – (NPM) Cale Wagner 1-yard run (pass failed), 9-61, 5:56
5:18 – (NW) Andrew Bonzcewski 25-yard pass from Jace McCoy (Biller pass from McCoy), 8-57, 3:43
Statistics
NPM NW
First downs 19 12
Rushes-net yards 39-214 23-63
Passing yardage 150 89
Passing 10-15-2-0 10-20-1-2
Fumbles-lost 0-0 2-2
Penalties-yards 12-111 8-57
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: North Penn Mansfield: Cale Wagner (18-77-1), George Perry (10-126-2), Karson Dominick (5-8-1), Isiah Kling (3-8), Kevin Clemente-Vazquez (2-(-1)), Charles Aumick (1-(-4)); Northwest: Adam Chonko (8-45), Anakin Kosek (8-10), Nicholas Stevens (3-7), Jace McCoy
(3-(-3)), Andrew Bonzcewski (1-4)
PASSING: North Penn Mansfield: Karson Dominick (10-15-150-2-0); Northwest: Jace McCoy (10-20-89-1-2)
RECEIVING: North Penn Mansfield: Luke Kreger (4-71-1), Cooper Shaw (3-36-1), Gabe Bellows (2-28), Cale Wagner (1-15); Northwest: Andrew Bonzcewski (4-44-1), Nicholas Stevens (2-20), Dominic Cavuto (1-10), Loegan Diltz (1-8), Branden Biller (1-4), Trevor Dietz (1-3)
