Tyrone picked up a win over Bellwood-Antis in the Backyard Brawl on Friday, winning 34-0. The victory gave the Golden Eagles consecutive victories in the series for the first time since 2015 and 2016.
It was the best offensive performance of the season for Tyrone, which improved to 2-3.
Here are 4 takeaways from the game.
FIRST DOWN: SHUTTING DOWN THE RUN
The Golden Eagles’ struggles against the run prior to Friday were well documented. They were allowing slightly less than 200 yards per game on the ground, which seemed to favor B-A, a team that leans heavily on the run.
But Tyrone responded with its what may have been its best game defending the run this season. The Eagles surrendered fewer yards against Johnstown (69), but the 72 they allowed against the Blue Devils came against a much stronger running attack with a much better feature back. Coming into the game freshman Alex McCartney had gained 100 yards in each of his first four games, but Tyrone limited him to 53 yards on 19 carries, about 80 yards below his per game average.
The Eagles only dropped McCartney once behind the line of scrimmage, but they stopped him 8 times for no gain or a single yard.
Tyrone had been strong against the run sporadically in the week’s prior to the Brawl. Against both Central and Bald Eagle Area the Eagles were good at stopping the run for two quarters but fell apart in the second half, so putting together four quarters against a team that made no secrets about its intent to run the football bodes well for Tyrone’s defense.
SECOND DOWN: PLAYMAKERS MAKE PLAYS
The Golden Eagles felt they could distance themselves from the Blue Devils with their advantage in athleticism, and they did. But it’s one thing to have a few more athletes and another for those players to make plays, and on Friday Tyrone’s playmakers had breakout games.
Andrew Weaver, arguably Tyrone’s best athlete, had a career game with 7 receptions for 139 yards, including a 54-yard touchdown in the second quarter where he ran through and past the Devils’ defense. Brady Ronan produced 87 total yards and scored as a runner and a receiver. Dravyn Crowell had three catches for 50 yards, taking a 50-50 ball in the third quarter and turning it into a 39-yard touchdown. Eli Woomer had a catch go for 31 yards.
To top it all off, quarterback Ashton Walk threw for 250 yards and went without an interception for the first time this season.
in short, everyone who was supposed to play big did. All of the player who were expected to come up with explosive plays delivered.
With a game coming up this week against Bishop Guilfoyle, that is going to have to continue, but the addition of Crowell to the offense and the emergence of the sophomore Woomer have made a promising offense much more dynamic in the last two weeks.
THIRD DOWN: WALK GOES OVER 1000
Walk entered the game with 774 passing yards, so the 250 he got put him over 1,000 yards for the third time in his career.
Only one other Tyrone quarterback, Steve Franco from 2009-2011, has had three 1,000-yard seasons.
Walk threw for 1,248 yards as a freshman in 2021 before following that performance up by passing for 1,653 as a sophomore. His career yardage number now stands at 3,925, which is second all-time at Tyrone. Franco heads the list with 6,070 yards.
FOURTH DOWN: BRAWL FIGURES
The win for Tyrone gave the Eagles 54 wins all-time in the series and 51 against the consolidated Bellwood-Antis High School.
It was the first Brawl shutout since 2006, when the Golden Eagles won 16-0 at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field n a heavy downpour. That one was led by Tyrone’s current defensive coordinator Johnny Franco, who led the team in rushing in the absence of an ailing Tyler Gillmen.
The 34 points were the most the Golden Eagles had scored against B-A since 2015 when they won 41-7 at Memorial Stadium behind a big receiving game from Parker Mitchell in his first varsity start.
ORANGE AND BLACK 