{"id":49009,"date":"2008-11-06T14:24:47","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T18:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/v3\/?p=49009"},"modified":"2008-11-06T14:34:23","modified_gmt":"2008-11-06T18:34:23","slug":"tyrone-faces-different-bald-eagle-area-team-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/?p=49009","title":{"rendered":"Tyrone faces different Bald Eagle Area team Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Andrew Clark<\/td>\nShane Walker<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

When Tyrone laced Bald Eagle Area in Week 5 with a 41-0 beat-down that was every bit as lopsided as the final score indicated, it was clear that it would take something pretty special for BEA to ever hope to compete with the Golden Eagles.
\nBald Eagle got that special something last week.
\nBEA scored late in the fourth quarter and held on to win 13-9 over archrival Bellefonte in the Curtin Bowl, giving the Eagles two important things.
\nThe first was a spot in the District 6-AA playoffs as the No. 8 seed with a 4-6 record.
\nThe other was a confidence boost.
\nThat alone will make BEA a very different team than the one Tyrone played in September when the teams face each other tomorrow at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field in the District 6-AA quarterfinals.
\nTyrone (9-1) is the No. 1 seed.
\n\u201cThe kids feel good,\u201d said BEA coach Jack Tobias. \u201cThey\u2019re pumped up and excited to be in the playoffs. It\u2019s an 8 seed against a 1 seed. We have nothing to lose.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s the kind of attitude Tyrone coach John Franco said makes BEA a more dangerous team the second time around.
\n\u201cThe game against Bellefonte was a big win for them,\u201d said Franco. \u201cThey\u2019re on cloud nine and they feel they can take on the world. The last time we played them, they were making a lot of turnovers and silly penalties. They haven\u2019t done that lately.\u201d
\nBut it will take more than a new attitude to turn around those 41 points that separated the teams little more than a month ago. This time, Tyrone will have even more weapons than it did in the first meeting, with three key players who were limited or inactive last time back at full capacity.
\nIn the earlier meeting, Mark Mingle \u2013 a running back nearing 800 yards for the season \u2013 played only on defense while nursing a toe injury. Eric Desch \u2013 Tyrone\u2019s leading receiver with almost 600 yards \u2013 played almost solely on offense while recuperating from an ankle injury, although on one of his few plays on defense he snagged an interception. And linebacker\/defensive lineman Sharrod Hankerson missed the game entirely as a result of an appendectomy.
\nAfter that, BEA still has to deal with the Eagles\u2019 key players who were healthy in September, played the entire game, and were responsible for a more than 350-yard disparity in total yardage, which Tyrone won 410-151.
\nNone was more damaging to Bald Eagle than Larry Glace, Tyrone\u2019s top rusher, who scorched BEA for 169 yards and four touchdowns on 22 carries. Last week, his career-high 210 yards on 24 carries allowed him to go over 1,200 yards this season and jump into 14th place on Tyrone\u2019s single-season rushing charts.
\nThere\u2019s also Levi Reihart, who passed for 140 yards and a touchdown when the teams last played. Going into the playoffs, the junior has completed 77 of 120 passes for 1,277 yards and nine touchdowns with just two interceptions.
\nBiggest of all, the Golden Eagle line that opened holes for Tyrone to rush for 263 yards in its last game with BEA is still all there. And if anything, Matt Murray, Jerrod Good, Jared Templeton, Jordan Berry, Dustin Weaver, Dan Benson, Mark Bryan and John Shaffer have only gotten better.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve improved overall in every area,\u201d Tobias said. \u201cThey\u2019re a solid team from an execution standpoint. They\u2019re fundamentally sound, and you can see it when they run the same things year after year and they\u2019re still successful because the players believe in what they\u2019re doing.\u201d
\nThey\u2019ve also got a unity of focus this season that, Franco said, has perhaps been missing in Tyrone\u2019s last couple playoff appearances, especially last season when the Eagles \u2013 again a 1-seed, bowed out in the semifinals with the a loss to Central Cambria.
\nThe game was unusual because Reihart suffered a hand injury in the first half that forced him to the sideline. Johnny Franco entered the game in his place after missing the entire regular season with a broken leg. Some bickering among the players followed, and Tyrone\u2019s offense never got rolling like it did during an unbeaten regular season.
\n\u201cThe way everything went last year, we\u2019ve got a couple players out to prove themselves. They didn\u2019t like how last season ended,\u201d said Franco. \u201cThey want to show they are among the best Tyrone teams to play here. It\u2019s a pretty hungry team, no doubt.\u201d
\nFor BEA to have a chance, it\u2019s going to take a better offensive performance than it orchestrated the last time it faced Tyrone. Then, Bald Eagle managed just eight first downs and a little over 100 yards rushing, while its passing attack was a non-factor.
\nBut according to Tobias, quarterback Derek Noll, who has passed for 489 yards despite completing only 29 percent of his passes, has made strides since September.
\n\u201cOur quarterback has gotten a lot more experience, and that makes things a lot easier,\u201d Tobias said. \u201cWe\u2019re right there on that edge of being a good offense.\u201d
\nWhen Tyrone played BEA the first time, it was in the middle of an offensive slump that saw BEA score just three touchdowns in six weeks, losing three times by shutout. BEA then exploded for 41 points against Lewistown two weeks ago, before scoring two significant touchdowns against the Red Raiders last week.
\n\u201cTwo of our big backs, Jon Gingrich (56-355) and Donnie Burns had bad ankles the last time we played Tyrone,\u201d said Tobias. \u201cWe were also coming off two big losses and a physical game with Central Mountain. The biggest difference for us now is that we have a totally different mind state and we\u2019re healthy.\u201d
\nThe Golden Eagles will still have to deal with BEA leading rusher A.J. Robinson, who has gained 802 yards and scored seven touchdowns on 161 carries.
\nStill, Bald Eagle will have a long way to go to catch Tyrone\u2019s dynamic offense, which is averaging 33 points and nearly 400 yards of total offense per game. It\u2019s also an offense that rarely is satisfied to just hold its ground in the postseason.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want to play not to lose,\u201d said Franco. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to hide and we want to let it all hang out. If you lose, do it showing your whole arsenal. If you go back to last year\u2019s playoffs, when Levi was hurt, I\u2019m glad we didn\u2019t just run iso-right, iso-left because of Levi\u2019s hand while we had one of our best weapons on the sideline. I would have spent the winter kicking myself. We\u2019re not going to sit on anything.\u201d
\nPlayoff Newbies
\nIt\u2019s been 10 years since BEA last participated in the playoff, making this a brand new experience for the Eagles.
\nIt\u2019s something Tobias wants his team to learn and grow from, while enjoying the moment. He would also like to see them play their best game.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a great atmosphere this week in practice,\u201d said Tobias. \u201cA lot of the kids are talking about how they have always wanted to make the playoffs. I told them that if you want to win a District championship, you\u2019re going to have to go through Tyrone sooner or later. It will be a good experience to see and feel the playoff atmosphere. Tyrone\u2019s fan base is second-to-none and I expect it to be packed. It will be interesting to see how far we\u2019ve come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Clark Shane Walker When Tyrone laced Bald Eagle Area in Week 5 with a 41-0 beat-down that was every bit as lopsided as the final score indicated, it was clear that it would take something pretty special for BEA to ever hope to compete with the Golden Eagles. Bald Eagle got that special something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-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\/49009","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=49009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}