{"id":2574,"date":"2007-11-19T12:07:12","date_gmt":"2007-11-19T16:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/v3\/?p=2574"},"modified":"2008-09-02T12:10:24","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T16:10:24","slug":"big-plays-by-central-cambria-kill-golden-eagles-tyrone-falls-21-10-in-district-6-aa-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/?p=2574","title":{"rendered":"Big plays by Central Cambria kill Golden Eagles Tyrone falls 21-10 in District 6-AA semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nRunning room Tyrone senior tailback Shayne Tate cuts to his left, through a hole opened by Johnny Shaffer (85) and Jess Walk (5), during the Eagles District 6-AA loss to Central Cambria on Saturday afternoon at Mansion Park. Tate finished the season with 1,546 rushing yards. (The Daily Herald\/Steve Michaels)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Who would have thought 13 weeks ago that an injury to Levi Reihart would have been enough to derail the Tyrone Golden Eagles?
\nConsidering the way Tyrone played most of the season in the wake of an injury to senior running back Johnny Franco, who would have thought any injury could untrack the Eagles from a rematch of last year\u2019s District 6-AA championship game against Bishop McCort?
\nBut Saturday\u2019s 21-10 loss to Central Cambria in the District semifinals at Mansion Park was proof of the good and bad of the broken leg that kept Franco on the sidelines for 10 weeks. Without him, the Eagles were forced to find other offensive options and develop an identity separate from the spread out, big-play look that it may have taken on had the injury never occurred. With Reihart out for most of the second half after bruising his throwing hand sometime in the second quarter, the Eagles lacked an identity, even with last year\u2019s leading rusher playing every down.
\n\u201c(Levi) had an injury. He had bruised his hand,\u201d said Tyrone coach John Franco. \u201cAfter we got behind by two scores, we went to the spread offense. Had we not been behind by two scores, we would have stayed with our regular offense. Generally if we\u2019re ahead, we\u2019ll just pound it. We made a decision if we were behind, we would go to that, but we had to be behind by two scores.\u201d
\nThere were two major reasons Tyrone trailed by two scores: the Eagles\u2019 inability to produce inside the 20-yard line and Central Cambria\u2019s penchant for making big plays. Tyrone\u2019s last four possessions of the first half penetrated as far as the Red Devils\u2019 3, 6, 34 and 18-yard lines, and all Tyrone had to show for it was three points.
\nCentral Cambria, meanwhile, played inside Tyrone\u2019s 20 just once the entire game, but they had two scoring plays of 65 yards or more, and a defense that refused to give in with its back to the wall.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s been the history of us all season,\u201d Central Cambria coach Ken Bussard said. \u201cWe\u2019ve struggled with our offense in the first half, and we sometimes put our defense in a hole, but they\u2019ve bailed us out. Our defense kept it close for us, and at halftime we were able to go in and make some adjustments.\u201d
\nThere was more to the Devils\u2019 big plays than just points. Instead, it was when they produced them. When Tyrone seemed poised to grab momentum and turn the game in its favor, Central Cambria was at its best.
\nThe Red Devils first score came on a second-and-10 play after Johnny Shaffer missed a 37-yard field goal. Shane McGregor handed off to Adam Petrosky on what looked like an off-tackle play to the right that was going nowhere. But Petrosky stopped and lateraled the ball back across the field to Jeff Wasilewski, who had three blockers in front of him to open up space along the left sideline. Eighty yards later, Wasilewski crossed the goal line at the 5:51 mark to put the Devils\u2019 ahead 6-3. The PAT attempt was no good.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s called a flicker play,\u201d said Bussard. \u201c(We) put it in this week and it worked to perfection. Jeff was able to make a big one out of it.\u201d
\n\u201cI thought we had it snuffed out pretty good,\u201d Franco said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how (Petrosky) got the ball off. But you win games by players making plays, and their kid made a great play by getting the ball back to him, and the other kid made a super play by running it.\u201d
\nUp to that point, the Devils had run six offensive plays and punted twice, while surrendering a sack.
\nCentral Cambria\u2019s next game-changing play came soon after the Eagles scored their first touchdown of the game. On the Devils\u2019 second play of the third quarter, Shayne Tate broke up a pass to Tim Myers that was intercepted by Jesse Walk at the Central Cambria 15. Two plays later, Tate scored from 6 yards out, and Shaffer\u2019s PAT gave Tyrone a 10-6 lead.
\nOn the ensuing possession, the Devils faced a 3rd-and-9 from their own 34 when McGregor hit Petrosky on a screen pass that the 5-foot-10 senior turned into a 65-yard touchdown to reclaim the lead for Central Cambria at 14-10 and take the wind out of the Eagles\u2019 sails.
\n\u201cThe key was three times getting down in the red zone in the first half without getting any points,\u201d Franco said. \u201cThe second key was after getting the big interceptions and touchdown to start the second half, they got the long screen pass and took all of the momentum we had. Third-and-long, if we get a stop there and get the ball back, I think it\u2019s a different game.\u201d
\nAfter forcing Tyrone to punt from its own 23 on its next series, the Devils\u2019 used a short field to tack on their final score. Starting at its own 47, Central Cambria moved the ball 54 yards on 10 plays to go up 11. It was an in-your-face drive that consisted of nine running plays and a fourth-and-3 conversion on a 20-yard pass from McGregor to Wasilewski that set the Devils up at the 2-yard line. Two plays later, Matt Cornetti crashed in from the 1.
\nWasilewski finished with 100 yards of total offense on two touches.
\nThe game was played in Altoona on Saturday instead of Gray-Veterans Field in Tyrone on Friday after Tyrone Area High School closed its doors until after Thanksgiving break last Thursday as a result of the disruption caused last week by the threat of violence at the school. However, Franco said the change of venue did not affect the team. Instead, he said, they looked at it positively.
\n\u201cThere were a lot of disruptions this week, but the good thing was, the kids used football to get away from it,\u201d Franco said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it really had any effect on the game. I thought (moving the game) was a good thing to do, and good for all the right reasons.\u201d
\nGRID TIDBITS: Tate finished the game with 67 yards on 12 carries, allowing him to finish the season with 1,546 yards on 208 carries, the seventh-best single-season performance in school history\u2026 Franco completed 3 of 9 passes for 33 yards and two interceptions\u2026 Tyrone held a 17-10 advantage in first downs\u2026 Central Cambria will face Laurel Highlands Conference foe Bishop McCort in the final Friday. The Crusher defeated Philipsburg-Osceola 15-11 in the other semifinal.
\nCentral Cambria 21 Tyrone 10
\nTyrone 3 0 7 0 \u2013 10
\nCentral Cambria 0 6 15 0 \u2013 21
\nScoring Summary
\nFirst Quarter
\nT \u2013 Shaffer 20 FG 1:24
\nSecond Quarter
\nCC – Wasilewski 80 run. (kick failed). 5:51.
\nThird Quarter
\nT \u2013 Tate 6 run (Shaffer kick) 11:07
\nC \u2013 Petrosky 65 pass from McGregor (Wasilewski pass from Petrosky) 9:24
\nC \u2013 Cornetti 1 run (Kimball kick) 1:49
\nTeam
\nT CC
\nFirst Downs 17 10
\nYards Rushing 156 192
\nPass Att.-Comp. 7-15 4-5
\nYards Passing 77 90
\nTotal Offense 233 282
\nFumble-Rec. 2-0 1-1
\nInterceptions By 1 2
\nPen.\/Yards 6-60 6-49
\nPunts\/Avg. 2-38 3-33
\nIndividual
\nRushing
\nTyrone \u2013 Tate 12-67; Franco 25-77; Walk 2-9; Emigh 1-13; Reihart 1-(-10); Team 4-(-4).
\nCentral Cambria \u2013 Wasilewski 1-80; O\u2019Saben 12-72; Cornetti 6-23; McGregor 9-16; Petrosky 5-5; Bono 1-0;
\nPassing
\nTyrone \u2013 Reihart 4-6-44, 0 TD, 0 Int.; Franco 3-9-33, 0 TD, 2 Int.
\nCentral Cambria \u2013 McGregor 4-5-90, 0 TD, 1 Int.
\nReceiving
\nTyrone \u2013 Emigh 4-61; Shaffer 1-14; Tate 1-1; Walk 1-1.
\nCentral Cambria \u2013 Petrosky 1-65; Wasilewski 1-20; O\u2019Saben 2-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running room Tyrone senior tailback Shayne Tate cuts to his left, through a hole opened by Johnny Shaffer (85) and Jess Walk (5), during the Eagles District 6-AA loss to Central Cambria on Saturday afternoon at Mansion Park. Tate finished the season with 1,546 rushing yards. (The Daily Herald\/Steve Michaels) Who would have thought 13 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}