Tyrone trounces Huntingdon with offensive surge
Beating Huntingdon is not as easy as Tyrone made it look last night in the Golden Eagles’ 41-21 pounding of the Bearcats at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field.
To do it, you have to be able to put the ‘Cats in a position where they’ve got to go against their bread-and-butter running game. Before last night, six teams had tried to do that, but only one – Bishop Guilfoyle – had been successful.
I was really pleased with our line. They finally blocked the way we felt they could.
John Franco
By the way things looked just six days earlier, when the Marauders’ line manhandled Tyrone in a 26-0 whitewashing, the odds of Tyrone slowing anyone were meager.
But Tyrone’s offensive line had a resurgence against the Bearcats, and because of that the Eagles were the team playing all the hits when it had the football. Huntingdon was on its heels most of the game and forced to play a brand of football it would rather avoid, completing just 7 of 14 passes for 63 yards.
“We were out of our comfort zone, for sure,” said Huntingdon coach Tim Lucko. “We’ve gotten better throwing the ball, but ideally it’s not something we want to do.”
Tyrone ran for 257 yards and passed for another 200, generating its best offensive performance of the season to down the one-loss Bearcats, who had entered the game as the top-ranked team in District 6 3A.
“We worked them hard this week,” Tyrone coach John Franco said of his offensive line. “We probably spent more time on the sled. But their inner motivation was the key. Knute Rockne speeches don’t cut it anymore. I was really pleased with our line. They finally blocked the way we felt they could.”
The push up front generated by Tyrone’s line – Ben Walk, Lucas Bonsell, John Stanton, Kayden Ansman, Owen Oakes, Alex Starr, and Caden Harris – was the key factor in running back Caleb Whitby’s career night. The junior carried 29 times for 200 yards and scored four touchdowns. His previous best was 188 yards against Westmont Hilltop in Week 2.
It was a far cry from Tyrone’s previous two games – a loss to Bellwood-Antis preceded the one at BG – when the Eagles were limited to 56 and 47 rushing yards, respectively, and scored just one touchdown.
But in spite of those anemic performances, Lucko had a feeling Tyrone was due to break out of its funk soon.
“We’ve got to answer the bell, and they physically beat us up front,” said Lucko, who is now 0-3 against Tyrone. “Tyrone is a team that has been close to making plays for a couple of weeks, and today they did.”
The win, coupled with Philipsburg-Osceola’s 24-15 loss to Bellefonte, lifted the Eagles (4-3) into a District 6 playoff spot for the first time this season. Tyrone is currently No. 4 in the 3A classification, which takes the top 4 into the postseason.
“Now at least we are in position to make a run at the playoffs,” Franco said. “It’s still going to be tough. The 3A grouping is the best around by far.”
In amassing 457 yards of offense, Tyrone compiled 25 first downs and scored on its first 5 possessions. By halftime, the Eagles were ahead 28-7.
“This was huge,” said junior Mason Emigh, who had 3 receptions for 67 yards to go along with an interception in the fourth quarter. “We were coming off two losses and we came in with that motivation to get a win.”
It was Mason’s older brother Ashton who got things rolling on the Eagles’ first play from scrimmage after they had halted the ‘Cats’ first drive after three plays. Starting at his own 46, Woomer lofted this deep pass to Ashton Emigh that went for 42 yards to Huntingdon’s 12.
On the very next play, Whitby picked his way through traffic to score from the 12, and the first of Tytus Novak’s 5 PAT kicks made it 7-0 with less than two minutes expired in the first quarter.
The Eagles limited Huntingdon to 5 yards the next time it had the ball, forcing another punt to take over at the 22. Tyrone got another big play early in the drive when Whitby got up field on this 35-yard run.
It was one of seven Whitby runs that went for 10 yards or more. Four plays later he carried for 12 to the 17 and followed it up with this 17-yard touchdown run that made it 14-0 with 5:19 remaining in the first.
If the push of Tyrone’s offensive line looked different by then, it’s because it was. According to Stanton, they had been tested in the week leading up to the game by Franco because they had failed to live up to their billing. Most of the starters on the Eagles’ line had been there at least one season, and their size was good enough to match up with any team in the Laurel Highlands.
“We worked hard this week,” said Stanton. “Coach Franco was on us all week, telling us about how we were supposed to be so good. Tonight, we were. In the first half we scored on every drive. We had everything going.”
Huntingdon answered Whitby’s touchdown with a scoring advance of its own, quickly moving 67 yards in 6 plays thanks to big runs of 17 yards by Even Edmiston and 22 yards by Cole Lane. Landon Erdman capped the drive with an 11-yard run to cut the deficit in half before the end of the opening frame.
But on a night when everything was clicking for Tyrone, the Eagles had plenty of their own answers left. First, they took the ensuing kick and went 80 yards to get Erdman’s score back.
The 8-play drive evenly split the run and pass, with Woomer going 4-for-4, including completions of 20 and 21 yards to Mason Emigh and Marshall Martin. After Woomer connected with Brayden Parsons for 11 to move the ball to the 22, Whitby zipped to the outside on a counter for his third touchdown to make it 21-7.
Tyrone got one more chance at points after forcing another Huntingdon punt, taking over at its own 21 with 4:39 remaining in the second quarter. A 17-yard gain on a screen to Ashton Emigh followed by a 15-yard run by Whitby, had the Eagles deep in Bearcat territory to set up Dylan Robinson’s first career touchdown with 37.5 seconds left in the half.
Tyrone’s offense continued to roll int he second half with another 80-yard march, this one boosted by a 36-yard reception by Mason Emigh that moved Tyrone to Huntingdon’s 18. Two plays later, Whitby got his fourth score.
Down 28, the Bearcats refused to go quietly and scored on the ensuing drive, a 68-yard push highlighted by two big runs from Erdman. Two plays after gaining 35 to the 23, Erdman blasted in from the 21 to cut the lead to 35-14.
Soon after, Huntingdon got its first defensive stop of the night, forcing a punt and retaking possession at Tyrone’s 31. From there, it took just three plays before Reese Hughes muscled in on a quarterback keeper to get it back to a two-score game heading into the fourth quarter.
“We told them at halftime, your true character is going to show over these next 24 minutes of football,” Lucko said. “We could have tanked it. The kids showed character.”
Tyrone showed some growth as well. In a similar situation in Week 1 against Bellefonte, after the Raiders had cut into a two-touchdown deficit late, the Eagles’ running game couldn’t generate a first down, and Bellefonte was able to complete a comeback win.
Last night, Tyrone got the ball back and held possession for 14 plays, consuming seven minutes and keeping the ball well into the fourth quarter. Ashton Emigh carried 5 times for 25 yards on the drive, and Martin had a pair of catches to convert third downs.
The drive stalled at Huntingdon’s 23, but after offsetting penalties following the change of possession, Mason Emigh picked off Hughes and Tyrone had the ball back at the Bearcats’ 42.
This time the Eagles would cash in, scoring on a 3-yard run by Woomer with 44 seconds left in the game. Oakes then sealed the win with his third interception of the season.
“They had all the momentum and we were able to drive from 20 to 20. That was big,” Franco said. “We lost to Bellefonte because of that. We needed a first down and our running game couldn’t do it.”
Tyrone will continue its second-half gauntlet next week when it travels to Penn Cambria, the defending 3A champs who are now ranked No. 2 in the classification. Huntingdon will travel to Bedford to face the 2-5 Bisons.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Huntingdon 7 0 14 0 – 21
Tyrone 14 14 7 6 – 41
First Quarter
T – Whitby 12 run (Novak kick) 10:03
T – Whitby 17 run (Novak kick) 5:19
H – Erdman 11 run (Snare kick) 1:42
Second Quarter
T – Whitby 22 run (Novak kick) 9:14
T – Robinson 5 pass from Woomer (Novak kick) :37.5
Third Quarter
T – Whitby 7 run (Novak kick) 7:22
H – Erdman 21 run (Snare kick) 5:55
H – Hughes 1 run (Snare kick) 35.7
Fourth Quarter
T – Woomer 3 run (PAT kick failed) :44.6
TEAM STATISTICS H T
First downs 9 25
Total yards 226 457
Rushes-yards 23-163 44-257
Yards passing 63 200
Passing (comp.-att.-int.) 7-14-2 12-18-0
Punts-avg. 3-36.3 1-38
Fumbles-lost 0-0 0-0
Penalties-yards 2-20 2-11
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING—Tyrone Whitby 29-200, Emigh 9-42, Woomer 5-12, Parsons 1-3; Huntingdon Gibson 1-1, Guisler 1-1, Hughes 2-10, Edmiston 7-33, Erdman 7-85, Lane 3-44, Guisler 3-0.
PASSING—Tyrone Woomer 12-18-200, 1 TD, 0 Int. Huntingdon Guisler 1-3-8, 0 TD, 0 Int., Hughes 6-11-55, 0 TD, 2 Int.
RECEIVING—Tyrone Robinson 3-23, M. Emigh 3-68, Martin 3-38, A. Emigh 2-60, Parsons 1-11, Whitby 1-1. Huntingdon Edmiston 1-2, Gibson 2-7, Snare 1-16, Erdman 1-8, Cathern 2-29.
ORANGE AND BLACK 