By: Dave Fegley (Twitter: @DFegs9)
For the 9th time in Southern Columbia head coach Jim Roth’s historic career, his Tigers completed an undefeated regular season. His squad didn’t have any trouble against an inferior Warrior Run team as the Tigers cruised to a 44-13 victory. In fact, it was such a dominant effort that the high-powered Southern offense didn’t touch the ball until there was just over four minutes to play in the first quarter. “From an offensive standpoint, you hope to be able to come into a game like this and work on some things to try and stay sharp, but you don’t get too much of an opportunity when you’re up 20-0 before you even get your first offensive snap,” said Jim Roth.
Southern senior Adam Feudale took the opening kickoff 84 yards for the Tigers first score. “On the kick return I just got it and didn’t even get to full speed yet, and I looked left and saw it was open and just took off from there,” Feudale said. On the first defensive series, junior Luke Rarig picked off Hunter Raup’s pass and returned it 71 yards for the second touchdown. The Tigers defense forced another stop on the next drive and forced the Defenders to punt after linebacker Cody Pavlick sacked Raup. Ken Fegley blocked that punt and recovered it himself in the end zone to make the score 20-0 with 4:29 left in the first quarter of play. Nate Hunter tacked on an offensive score for the victors on a one yard plunge to put the Tigers up 26-0 after the opening quarter. “I was really excited to see that we scored three touchdowns without having to touch the ball on offense. If our defense can put up numbers like that and our special teams can help, it’s just good news for us,” stated an excited Feudale on his senior night at Tiger Stadium.
Rarig and Feudale weren’t done with making plays on the night. In the second quarter, Rarig caught a slant pass from Nick Becker and took it 82 yards for a score. “Knowing that our players don’t get as many touches as some other teams do because we haven’t had to play a full game, we have to make the most of every opportunity,” said Rarig. Feudale had a 69 yard touchdown scamper on the next series. Senior Matt Lupold added the final score of the half on a four yard run to make the score 47-0 at the half.
In that first half alone, Feudale had two carries for 117 yards and that opening kickoff return for two total touchdowns on the night. Rarig had two catches for 108 yards, and on the defensive side of the ball completed the hat-trick with three interceptions including his first one that he took back for a score. In all, the Tiger defense limited the Defenders to only one first down and forced four turnovers in the first half. “On defense we just want to come onto the field and punch the offense in the mouth,” said the Tigers only starting two-way lineman Trent Donlan. “We want to make them know that they can’t just come out and go down the field on us every drive.”
Warrior Run scored two touchdowns on the SCA reserves in the 4th quarter to make the score a lot closer than it was in terms of dominance by the home team. Southern Columbia will start their playoff run next week as the top seed in the district. “Now that we are in the playoffs we want to keep playing well and don’t want our careers to end now. We want to end our careers in Hershey,” said senior lineman Josh Tripp speaking on behalf of the senior class. Thanks to Muncy getting upset by Hughesville, it looks like the Tigers will have the chance to take on their backyard rival Bloomsburg in the first round of the playoffs next Friday night at Tiger Stadium if Canton loses to Troy tomorrow. These two teams met last month and the Tigers pummeled the Panthers 50-13, but Bloomsburg has been playing better as of late. Southern has not played Canton this season, but if they are able to knock off Troy then these two teams will square off next week.
SCA: 26-21-0-0 = 44
WR: 0-0-0-13 = 13
SOUTHERN COLUMBIA (10-0)
RUSHING:
Adam Feudale 2-117, TD; Matt Lupold 3-9, TD; Blake Marks 3-7; Nate Hunter 5-32, TD; Brad Noll 5-31; Billy Marzeski 3-12; Matt Jeremiah 7-40; Sam Abdul 1-2; Dylan Kranzel 1-(-2); Jared Torres 2-2; Steve Toczylousky 3-4; Jacob Potter 1-(-1)
PASSING:
Nick Becker 4-5-0, 141 yds, TD
RECEIVING:
Luke Rarig 2-108, TD; Blake Marks 1-27; Nate Hunter 1-6
1st DOWNS: 12
PENALTIES: 1-10
WARRIOR RUN (1-9)
RUSHING:
Tyler Kling 4-85 TD; Zach Burrows 18-78; Hunter Raup 6-22, TD; Matt Gummo 4-5
PASSING:
Hunter Raup 4-13-3, 35 yds
RECEIVING:
Wyatt Kirkendall 3-15; Matt Gummo 1-20
1st DOWNS: 10
PENALTIES: 2-10
Final Warrior Run stats courtesy of Damien Scoblink (Press Enterprise)
4 Responses
Yea, overall the Heartland is down this year.
these two playoff games should at least give SCA some work. Playing Bloom a 2nd time won’t necessarily be as easy as the first and Wellsboro is a team I’m not sure how to gauge being up in the NTL. We will see how they are against the mounties this week. I think Muncy not making it in is better for SCA. Week 13 will definitely show where SCA actually is. Don’t forget D2 teams don’t have that difficult of a regular season schedule either. Just seems to be a down year as a whole across class A.
Todd,
I completely agree with your comment of how bad SCA’s opponents are this year. In fact, they have been so bad that I don’t really know how good this Tiger team actually is. If I had to put money on it, I would say that the 2011 team would beat this years team by three touchdowns because I think that the ’11 squad had more talent at every position.
I don’t agree with some of your spelling though!
It’s LUKE Rarig & WEAK schedule. Sorry I just have to correct that because its my pet peeve since I have an English minor.
Good luck Southern & go all the way!
That Warrior Run team could quite possibly be the worst team I have ever seen Southern play in my 30+ yrs of following the Tigers. SCA could have scored 150 points if they wanted to! Like Rarig is definitely going to be an all-state selection along with Feudale. Pavlick will probably be as well. I just hope that this week schedule doesn’t hurt us when it comes to state playoff time. Unfortunately, we had to play against the worst schedule probably in the programs history this year. I hope we get to beat Bloom next week again so lets go Troy!!!