Tigers Defense Dominates Red Tornadoes at the Silver Bowl

By: Dave Fegley (Black Diamond Sports Network) on Saturday, September 14^th, 2013

MOUNT CARMEL— When Southern Columbia (3-0) and Mount Carmel Area (2-1) square off, which they have done for the last eighteen years, it is the marquee matchup in the state for a couple of different reasons. You have a Tiger program that has won the most state championships in Pennsylvania history and a Tornado program that has won the most games in Pennsylvania history. That being said, tonight’s matchup certainly didn’t live up to the hype like many great games have in this rivalry’s past. The Tigers traveled to the Silver Bowl and came out from the opening kickoff and dominated the home Tornadoes on both sides of the ball resulting in the second largest margin of victory out of any game in this series. The Tigers blew the Tornadoes out 45-7 and that 38 point margin of victory was the second largest margin behind the 54-0 massacre when the Tigers beat the Tornadoes in 2006. The most impressive showing tonight was the Tigers defense which limited Mount Carmel to negative 8 yards rushing on the night and came up with big play after big play for the entire game. “The defense played well from the opening kickoff and that was probably the thing that I was most pleased with tonight,” said Southern coach Jim Roth.

The Tornadoes won the opening toss and elected to receive. The Tigers defense shut down the Tornadoes on the first drive of the game forcing a punt. Senior Ken Fegley blocked Dominic Farranato’s punt and the Tigers took over deep inside Red Tornado territory. Adam Feudale started the night’s scoring on his first of three touchdowns for the night on a one-yard plunge up the middle to give the Tigers a 7-0 lead with 8:48 remaining in the opening quarter.

On the next MCA possession, senior quarterback Zach Wasilewski was picked off by Luke Rarig and he returned it to the 25 yard line of the Tornadoes. The Tigers only needed one play to score on that drive when Nick Becker hooked up with Nate Hunter for a 25 yard touchdown pass to put the visitors up 14-0 only 48 seconds after they scored the opening touchdown and the Tigers were just getting started.
The Tigers forced another three and out on the ensuing possession by the Tornadoes and it only took the Tigers five plays all which were via the run to score Hunter’s second touchdown of the night, this one a nine yard run, to put the Tigers up 19-0 with 6:45 left in the first quarter.

The Tigers scored their fourth touchdown of the opening quarter on a 6 play-drive (3 passes & 3 runs) that was finished off with a 13 yard touchdown run by Feudale to make the score 25-0 in favor of the Tigers after one quarter of action. “We want to really put up a lot of points on people this year and win big,” said Tigers senior offensive lineman Josh Tripp.

The Tornadoes had a little bit of success on their first drive of the second quarter, but a couple of costly penalties forced them to punt. The Tigers got the ball on their own 34 yard line and had their fifth straight scoring drive to open the game that was highlighted by two plays. The first was a 23 yard pass that Becker lobbed in the air to his favorite receiver Luke Rarig. Rarig came down with it over a Red Tornado defender at the 26 yard line. On the very next play Adam Feudale broke a couple of tackles and scampered in from 26 yards out to extend the Tiger lead to 33-0 with just over seven minutes remaining in the opening half. Feudale was also the game’s leading rusher with 133 yards on 21 carries.

Mount Carmel was forced to punt again after just three plays, this time after Mitch Stanziale sacked Wasilewski on third down. “We implemented a different defensive scheme this week and it was neat to see how it played out,” said Tiger linebacker Robert Delbo. It worked indeed because Wasilewski didn’t have much time to throw the entire night and even when he did, his receivers dropped a lot of balls. Wasilewski was also hit on more than half of his pass attempts on the night. “Zach is a tough player and we wanted to get some hits on him to try and fluster him. You need to give him credit though because he hung in there tonight after taking a lot of hits and made a couple nice throws when he had a little time,” said Delbo.

The Tornado defense finally made a scoring stop on the Tigers sixth drive of the game forcing a three and out and the first Tiger punt of the game with 5:14 remaining in the half. The two teams made defensive stops on each of the next two possessions. Then, with 57 seconds remaining in the opening half, Wasilewski found Treyvon White open behind the Tiger secondary and hit him in stride from 40 yards out to make the score 33-7 at the half in favor of Southern.

The Tigers got the ball to start the second half and had a 10-play statement drive that nearly ate up half of the third quarter. The Tigers called eight running plays and two passing plays on that drive. On the final play of the drive, Becker found Rarig on a slant pattern for his second touchdown pass of the night to put the Tigers well in command 39-7 with 7:20 left in the quarter. “We wanted to run the ball effectively tonight which we did in the first half and then we started to pass as well,” said Tripp.

Mount Carmel started their opening drive of the second half with Wasilewski finding Farranato down field on a completion that put the ball inside Tiger territory. However, the Tigers stingy defense made another stop forcing the Tornadoes to punt after Delbo sacked Wasilewski for a loss of 12 yards on 3^rd down.

The Tigers were forced to punt on their next possession and the Tornadoes got the ball at midfield. They were threatening to score until Delbo came up with his second huge sack of the quarter and the Tornadoes turned the ball over on downs and that was the final time the Tornadoes crossed midfield for the game. At the end of three quarters the Tigers were leading 39-7 and it could have been even worse.

Both teams played their subs for a large portion of the final quarter with the game well out of reach. The Tigers scored the only touchdown of the fourth quarter on a nice 43 yard touchdown run by sophomore Billy Marzeski to make the score 45-7 and put the game into the mercy rule with 1:02 remaining. That is the way the game ended with the Tigers dominating the Tornadoes and handing them one of their worst home losses in the Silver Bowl ever. This was also one of the best showings by a Tiger defense in recent memory. “We played a 4-3 defense for most of the game since they run a spread offense and it seemed like our defense stepped up and came into their own a little bit and that is crucial if we want to make a deep run this year,” said Roth in regards to how important his defense is if they want to make it back to Hershey.

Next week, the Tigers host South Williamsport in a PHAC Division III game to try and stay undefeated on the year. The Tornadoes travel to Loyalsock, a PHAC Division II opponent, and the winner of that game will be tied for the division lead. With the victory tonight, the Tigers now lead the series 10 to 8 in the eighteen year backyard rivalry with the Tornadoes.

SCA: 25-8-6-6 = 45

MCA: 0-7-0-0 = 7

SOUTHERN COLUMBIA (3-0)

RUSHING:

Adam Feudale 21-133, 3 TDs; Matt Lupold 8-57; Billy Marzeski 1-43, TD; Blake Marks 7-41; Nate Hunter 5-31, TD; Nick Becker 3-9; Brad Noll 2-5 Matt Jeremiah 1-1

PASSING:

Nick Becker 8-11-0, 136 yds, 2 TDs

RECEIVING:

Blake Marks 1-32; Nate Hunter 2-30, TD; Luke Rarig 4-64, TD; Adam Feudale 1-10

1^st DOWNS: 19

PENALTIES: 6-37

MOUNT CARMEL (2-1)

RUSHING:

Christian Kelley 2-17; Zach Wasilewski 14-(-19); Allen Yankoskie 2-6; Blake Panko 2-0; Wesley Shurock 1-(-3); Bryan Deitz 1-(-4); Mike Gilger 3-(-5)

PASSING:

Zach Wasilewski 12-21-1, 159 yds, TD

RECEIVING:

Treyvon White 4-63, TD; Christian Kelley 3-34; Dominic Farranato 2-32; Mike Gilger 1-12; Tyler Thompson 1-8; Juwan Sullins 1-10

1^st DOWNS: 6

PENALTIES: 7-70

Final Mount Carmel stats courtesy of Damien Scoblink (Press Enterprise)