It’s got to be nice being Isaac Rumery these days.
The Clearfield senior started the week basking in the glow of a 253-yard, 5-touchdown passing performance to knock of undefeated Bellefonte last Friday. By mid-week he had announced he was walking on at Penn State next fall.
Rumery then crowned as solid an eight-day period a young man will ever have by breaking his school’s career passing record in last night’s 35-7 victory over Tyrone at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field.
The Bisons rolled to 7-0, staying tied atop the Mountain League.
Rumery completed 12 of 17 passes for 184 yards and a pair of touchdowns to lead an offense that has been virtually unstoppable since Week 2. His numbers allowed him to surpass Chad Kroell, who finished his career at Clearfield in 1994 with 6,088 passing yards.
Rumery needed 176 yards heading into the game to catch Kroell.
“They’re two different types of quarterbacks,” said Clearfield coach Tim Janocko when asked to compare Rumery with Kroell. “He has a stronger arm. Chad was very accurate. But now as a senior (Rumery) is really becoming accurate. I think he only has one interception in seven games. We threw a lot more with Chad, but he certainly ranks right up there.
“Kudos to him and our receivers and our offensive line. That’s a great achievement.”
Janocko said the Bisons didn’t go into the game looking for the record, but it was on the table against a Tyrone defense that has been hemorrhaging yards over the last three weeks. After surrendering 384 yards to the Bisons, the Golden Eagles have now given up 994 yards in three consecutive losses to fall to 4-3.
Despite what Rumery did with his arm, Tyrone was gouged just as badly by Clearfield’s running attack, as big games from Rumery, Brett Zattoni and Justin Hand allowed the Bisons to total 200 yards on the ground.
Clearfield scored on five of its first six possessions, with four of those series lasting nine plays or longer.
“I thought we played well. We’re a little banged up right now,” said Janocko. “We have some guys hurt, and we had some confusion every now and then because we were switching guys around, but the guys who came in did a good job and played well.”
Despite the efficiency with which Clearfield was able to play offensively, it was a tight game right up until the end of the first half. Tyrone scored on its opening possession, parlaying a pair of long connections from quarterback Denver Light to Cory Lehman and Tommy Hicks into a six-yard touchdown run by Zac Albright to take a 7-0 lead.
The Bisons answered back, using a pair of short fields to take a 13-7 lead in the second quarter when Rumery scrambled out of trouble to find Taye Lynch for a 9-yard score.
Clearfield then moved 77 yards in 10 plays to set up shop at the Tyrone 3 looking for a knockout blow.
Tyrone’s defensive stood tall, stopping the Bisons on three straight running plays before Rumery overshot Jake Lezzer in the front corner of the end zone on fourth down, giving the Eagles possession with 2:08 left in the half.
Clearfield had spent all of its timeouts, so it was conceivable for Tyrone to run the ball and head into the locker room down by a single score.
But the Golden Eagles took a shot, and after completing a 6-yard pass to Lehman on second down Light looked for a long ball on third-and-4, but it was picked off by Lynch at the 45. He broke a couple of tackles and was downed at the 23.
Two plays later Rumery fired a laser to Barrett Kline for a 23-yard touchdown, putting Clearfield ahead 21-7 at the break.
“That was a big momentum turn,” said Tyrone coach Jason Wilson, whose team fell to 3-3 in the Mountain League. “We completed a pass just to get us out of the end zone and get us moving a little bit. We took a shot deep, and even though they got the interception, we’ve got to make the tackle right there. Essentially, that’s like a punt. We were in third down in that situation anyway, but the guy got it and took it back a few yards and put them in position to take a shot at the end zone.”
With Clearfield’s offense chugging along and set to receive the second-half kick, that turnover changed the complexion of the game.
“That definitely was the momentum-breaker,” said Janocko. “It definitely turned momentum on our side. They may have been looking at what we were doing defensively and trying to adjust to it.”
The Bisons added two more scores out of the gate in the third quarter to put the game well out of reach. Zattoni, who ran for 81 yards, scored four minutes into the frame from 1-yard out to cap a 65-yard drive highlighted by a 31-yard catch-and-run by Lezzer and a 21-yard connection from Rumery to Spencer Graham.
On the Bisons’ next possession, Zattoni went 33 yards up the gut for the score that set the final.
“We continue to get down two or three touchdowns in the third quarter, and we’re not able to get ourselves back out of it,” said Wilson. “Especially against a team like this that moves the ball so efficiently and has a lot of playmakers and a lot of speed, that’s really difficult when you put yourself in that situation.”
To get an idea of how smoothly Clearfield’s offense has been running these days, consider these numbers from last night.
- The Bisons went 9-for-12 on third down, scoring three times.
- Clearfield had 10 plays go for 15 yards or more, with seven of them going for 21 or longer.
- Five different players produced more than 50 yards of offense from the line of scrimmage.
The Bisons are that good. And they’ll be playing for the Mountain League title next week in Wingate when they take on Bald Eagle Area, the conference’s other unbeaten team.
Tyrone, meanwhile, will be trying to find a way to stop the bleeding on defense – the Eagles have allowed 31 or more points in three straight games – while trying to get its offense back to where it was in Weeks 1 through 4. Since the second half the Philipsburg-Osceola game in Week 4, the Eagles have scored just four touchdowns in 14 quarters.
“I think we moved the ball a lot better this week than we did last week, especially on that first series,” Wilson said. “We did well up front. We were starting to move the ball and keeping them on their toes with the short passes. We just get ourselves dug into a second-and-long or third-and-long, and we’e not making the plays to get out of those situations.
Tyrone will be back at home next week to face 3-4 Hollidaysburg, which snapped a four-game losing streak last night with a 56-12 win over Central Mountain.
“Don’t be fooled by Hollidaysburg’s record because they play a tough schedule,” said Wilson. “It’s a tough way the whole way out for the rest of the season. We knew that going in. I still think we just haven’t put a whole game together. We’ve showed signs of how we can play. We just need to play four quarters.”
CLEARFIELD 35, TYRONE 7
TYRONE 7 0 0 0 – 7
CLEARFIELD 6 15 14 0 – 35
FIRST QUARTER
T – Albright 6 run (Raabe kick) 8:08
C – Hand 16 run (PAT failed) 4:12
SECOND QUARTER
C – Lynch 9 pass from Rumery (McGonigal kick) 8:55
C – Kline 23 pass from Rumery (Rumery pass to Lezzer) 1:23
THIRD QUARTER
C – Zattoni 1 run (McGonigal kick) 7:47
C – Zattoni 33 run (McGonigal kick) 4:36
T C
First Downs 13 19
Yards Rushing 27 200
Pass Att./Comp. 16-27 12-17
Yards Passing 192 184
TOTAL OFFENSE 219 384
Fumbles/Rec. 0-0 0-0
Intercepted by 0 2
Punts/Avg. 4-36.8 2-33.5
Penalties/Yards 4-35 6-50
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing
Tyrone – Albright – 14-33; Light 5-2; Lucas 1-4; Hicks 1-10; Team 1-(-22).
Clearfield – Hand 9-74; Zattoni 15-81; Rumery 11-42; Plubell 2-2; Lezzer 2-1.
Passing
Tyrone – Light 12-22-142, 0 TD, 2 Int.; Lucas 4-5-50, 0 TD, 0 Int.
Clearfield – Rumery 12-17-184, 2 TD, 0 Int.
Receiving
Tyrone – Hicks 3-44; Lehman 4-83; Gripp 1-12; Albright 1-17; Homan 3-30; B. Zimmerman 1-5; Clifton 1-13; Brandt 2-32.
Clearfield – Lezzer 4-51; Lynch 5-79; Graham 2-31; Kline 1-23.
ORANGE AND BLACK 