Everyone has heard the cliche\u2019 on how to win football games.
\nSome say the game is won in the trenches. For others, offense sells tickets, but defense wins football games.
\nLast week, strong special teams performances played a pivotal role in every Big 8 Conference match up.
\nTake, for example, Huntingdon\u2019s road win over previously undefeated Bellefonte. After the Raiders scored following a fumbled shotgun snap by the Bearcats, Huntingdon\u2019s Ron Quinn responded with a 91-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to tie the score.
\nHuntingdon never lost the momentum it gained from that play, and went on to win 21-14 to improve to 3-0 overall and 2-0 in the conference.
\nIn Indian Valley\u2019s 42-15 win over Clearfield, Valley\u2019s Matt Setzer blocked a punt that was returned for a score. Tyrone blocked a key field goal attempt by Lewistown\u2019s Seth Smeltz while the Eagles held a still tenuous 7-0 over the Panthers. Tyrone scored on its next possession and won 35-0.
\nLeading 14-0 over Bald Eagle Area, Bishop Guilfoyle blocked a punt attempt out of the endzone to pick up a safety and a 16-0 lead. The Marauders capitalized where the Eagles could not because later in the game BEA failed to turn a blocked punt of its own into points.
\nFinally, in Penns Valley\u2019s 38-7 route of Philipsburg-Osceola, kicker Carl Anderson drilled a 31-yard field goal to put the icing on a solid all-around performance by the Rams.
\nOffensive Woes
\nPhilipsburg-Osceola is again this season a team in a state of flux. The Mounties hired coach Jeff Vroman in the off-season, P-O\u2019s third head coach in the last four seasons, and the team has been slow to adjust to the new system.
\nThe Mounties are 1-2, but have produced just one offensive touchdown and have been outscored a collective 45-14. Their other score came in a 7-0 win over Lewistown in Week 1 when Zach Johns returned an interception 70 yards for a score.
\nIn its last two games alone, Philipsburg-Osceola has mustered just 226 yards in total offense.
\nTo date, the Mounties have gained a total of 391 yards in three games, for an average of 130 yards per game.
\nQuarterback High
\nSomething about the Tom Gravish system at Bellefonte brings out the best in quarterbacks.
\nHis first season with the Raiders in 1999, Gravish coached Bill Witmer, a strong-armed quarterback who passed for over 2,000 yards as a senior and signed out of high school with Clarion before transferring later to Lock Haven. Next came Stewart Sampsel, another slinger who put together back-to-back 1,000-yard passing seasons in 2000 and 2001 and signed with Buffalo University.
\nThe Raiders are now grooming another young quarterback to fill the role of the high-profile passer in sophomore Josh Mundy. Mundy is coming along, according to Gravish, and has the work ethic to develop into a passer like Sampsel.
\n\u201cHe works very hard,\u201d said Gravish. \u201cHe comes in early in the morning to work on his passing and he worked extremely hard in the off-season.\u201d
\nAgainst Huntingdon last week, Mundy completed 12 of 22 passes for 164 yards and one touchdown.
\nTop Performers
\nBald Eagle Area quarterback Mark Fisher completed 6 of 11 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns last Friday in the Eagles’ loss 44-20 loss to Bishop Guilfoyle to lead all conference passers. Teammate Eli Halterman was on the receiving end of four of those passes totaling 200 yards to lead all receivers.
\nTwo teams saw a pair of rushers top the 100-yard mark, led by Indian Valley\u2019s Derek Fisher (155) and Luke Astort (139) in the Warriors’ win over Clearfield. Valley racked 318 rushing yards and 422 total.
\nMeanwhile, Tyrone sophomores Ben Gummo (132) and Brice Mertiff (128) also surpassed the 100-yard mark in Tyrone\u2019s won over Lewistown. Both rushers posted career-high numbers, while Mertiff became the first first-year running back to gain over 100 yards for the Eagles since Jesse Jones in 1997.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everyone has heard the cliche\u2019 on how to win football games. Some say the game is won in the trenches. For others, offense sells tickets, but defense wins football games. Last week, strong special teams performances played a pivotal role in every Big 8 Conference match up. Take, for example, Huntingdon\u2019s road win over previously […]<\/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-48191","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\/48191","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=48191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}