It didn\u2019t take a seer or a soothsayer to predict the outcome of the Mountain Athletic Conference Nittany Division in 2005.
\nTyrone was a popular preseason choice as champion despite losing many key players to graduation. Bellwood-Antis garnered support, as well, and most people could see that the annual clash between the Golden Eagles and Blue Devils in Week 1 was about a little bit more than community pride.
\nIn this case, the season-opener 10 weeks ago was also the conference championship, which the Eagles won. Now, two months later, Tyrone has its second Nittany Division championship, while B-A has just one loss.
\nBut while there were no crystal balls necessary to foretell the ultimate fate of teams in the MAC\u2019s small school division, not even the Amazing Kreskin himself could have seen what was coming in the big school Seven Mountains.
\nBellefonte, which hadn\u2019t won conference championship since 1989 \u2013 a team that in the last decade had made a name for itself by winning the fewest titles with the most talent of any area team \u2013 rose to the top past traditional contenders Clearfield and Huntingdon to win its first Seven Mountains crown. And the Red Raiders did it in dominating fashion, running roughshod over every opponent save one \u2013 the Golden Eagles in Week 6.
\nThe MAC\u2019s second campaign had that surprise and others over its nine-week season, helping to make the sequel as compelling a season as the inaugural run in 2004. The following are some of the memorable moments and players from the season gone by.
\nPLAYER OF THE YEAR
\nIn the Nittany Division, no player was more important to his team than Tyrone quarterback Leonard Wilson. The three-year starter entered his senior campaign fully recognizing two things: 1) he had a number of records within his grasp that \u2013 if reached \u2013 wold firmly entrench him as the best quarterback in school history, and 2) there was no way the Eagles could compete for a third District championship if he wasn\u2019t at his best every week.
\nWith those two things in mind, Wilson went out every Friday and simply dominated. He threw for over 100 yards in every game but one, became the first passer in Tyrone history to register three consecutive 1,000-yard passing seasons, and set two school records, with two more in the wings, pending a Golden Eagle run in the playoffs.
\nIn nine games, he completed 69 of 105 passes (65.7 percent) for 1,121 yards and 13 touchdowns, in the process becoming the first Tyrone signal caller to throw for over 3,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in a career. He also ran for 175 yards and three touchdowns.
\nBeyond the numbers, Wilson was the one player that every Nittany Division coach mentioned when asked the question \u201cWhat concerns you most about Tyrone?\u201d because every coach understood that he could beat you in more ways than commonly associated with a standard high school passer.
\nAlso deserving close consideration is B-A junior tailback Josh Kleinfelter. In his second year as a starter, Kleinfelter accumulated staggering numbers that make him special not only at Bellwood-Antis \u2013 where under John Hayes the Blue Devils have transformed the program into Tailback High \u2013 but in Blair County, as well, where one more season like 2005 will catapult him into the conversation of the county\u2019s all-time great scholastic runners, right alongside Tyrone\u2019s Jesse Jones.
\nIn the regular season, Kleinfelter ran for 1,599 yards on 223 carries, scoring 23 rushing and two receiving touchdowns. Even more impressively, every team he faced knew he was going to be the player to stop in order to shut down the Blue Devils, and aside from an inspired effort from Tyrone\u2019s defense, not a team could do it.
\nIn the Seven Mountains Division, it is again a quarterback who takes home Player of the Year honors, similarly edging a running back in the final analysis.
\nBellefonte\u2019s Chris Snare could have easily filled a number of roles for the Red Raiders and excelled. In 2004, he was a very capable wide receiver, and his speed and shiftiness make him a viable candidate for a running back position.
\nHowever, in the offseason, he saw that what the Raiders really needed was a quarterback, so he volunteered to play the position for the good of the team. Nine weeks later, he has taken Bellefonte to a level none of his renowned predecessors like Bill Witmer and Stewart Sampsel could reach: conference champions with a No. 1 seed in the District 6-AAA playoffs.
\nSnare did it by accentuating his strengths. He ran for nearly 700 yards, passed for over 400 yards, and even dropped back to return punts. In all, he accounted for over 1,200 yards in offense for the Red Raiders, who averaged nearly 30 points per game.
\nSnare\u2019s teammate Josh Gentzel, a hard-running power back who gained over 1,000 yards, was a close second. But the fact is it was Snare that gave the Raiders another gear offensively, and it was Snare most defensive coordinators game-planned for when facing the Red Raiders.
\nGAME OF THE YEAR
\nIn either division, no game topped the classic between Bellefonte and Clearfield at Rogers Stadium in Week 4.
\nComing off an emotional victory over Huntingdon, Bellefonte had to gear up once more against the defending Seven Mountains champion for a game to legitimize their conference title aspirations.
\nBy the start of the fourth quarter, Bellefonte had a 27-13 lead in what had been a seesaw game when Nate Carson scored on a 51-yard pass from Snare. But the Bison clawed their way back and tied the game at 27-27 with just over three minutes left to send the game into overtime.
\nThe first extra period ended in a draw, with both teams scoring rushing touchdowns, but in the second, Clearfield\u2019s Andrew Janocko fumbled away the Bison\u2019s first possession, leading to a Zach Robbins touchdown pass from Snare that gave the Raiders their first win over Clearfield since 1999, 40-34.
\nCOMBACK TEAM OF THE (LAST 30) YEAR(S)
\nWhile the Lewistown Panthers didn\u2019t win the Seven Mountains title \u2013 they only really competed for it for the first three weeks of the season \u2013 their turnaround under coach Allen Muir is still somewhat remarkable.
\nAfter 30-straight losing season \u2013 and an 0-10 finish in 2004 \u2013 the Panthers ended 2005 with a 5-4 record and a spot in the District 6-AAA playoffs. They sealed their first non-losing campaign last week with a win over rival Indian Valley that ignited a celebration at Mitchell Field not seen in more than a generation.
\n The Panthers then drew Huntingdon, a team that beat them 34-0 in Week 4, in the first found of the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It didn\u2019t take a seer or a soothsayer to predict the outcome of the Mountain Athletic Conference Nittany Division in 2005. Tyrone was a popular preseason choice as champion despite losing many key players to graduation. Bellwood-Antis garnered support, as well, and most people could see that the annual clash between the Golden Eagles and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42121","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=42121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}