{"id":49222,"date":"2008-11-15T12:28:03","date_gmt":"2008-11-15T16:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/v3\/?p=49222"},"modified":"2008-11-22T12:31:13","modified_gmt":"2008-11-22T16:31:13","slug":"o%e2%80%99saben-wasilewski-big-plays-lead-central-cambria-over-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/?p=49222","title":{"rendered":"O\u2019Saben, Wasilewski, big plays lead Central Cambria over Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nTaking aim
\nWhile Tyrone quarterback Levi Reihart looks for a receiver, his teammates Jerrod Good (66), Dustin Weaver (63), John Shaffer (85), Jared Templton (55) and others give him time to check all his options. Tyrone dropped a semifinal District 6-AA game to Central Cambria 27-20 at Gray-Vets Memorial Field on Friday. (The Daily Herald\/Mary Michaels)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

In a game where Central Cambria was poised to break a big play at a moment\u2019s notice, the last thing the Tyrone Golden Eagles could afford to do was miss out on an opportunity.
\nAnd last night, at the start of the fourth quarter, the Eagles had a big one staring them square in the face.
\nTrailing 27-14, with a wave of momentum pushing it towards the end zone, Tyrone found itself on the Red Devils\u2019 21. A score here, and the Eagles had every reason to believe it could erase the 27-7 hole it had dug itself by the first play of the third quarter.
\nBut three plays netted the Eagles zero yards, and when John Shaffer was taken down for a 1-yard gain on a pop pass on fourth-and-8, the delicate balance of momentum tilted back in the Red Devils\u2019 favor.
\nTyrone would score once more, but a gutsy fourth-down call by Central Cambria coach Ken Bussard late in the game ensured the Eagles would get the ball back for just one more play, and it wasn\u2019t nearly enough. Central Cambria defeated Tyrone 27-20 in the District semifinals for the second straight season, advancing to the championship game against the winner of today\u2019s game between Forest Hills and Central.
\nIt was Tyrone\u2019s second loss in its last three semifinal games at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field.
\n\u201cWe dug ourselves in a hole too early, and we weren\u2019t able to come out of it,\u201d said Tyrone coach John Franco. \u201cThe really bad one was at the beginning of the fourth quarter when we didn\u2019t get that one in down there. We had all the momentum on our side. If we could have gotten that one, it could have been a different game.\u201d
\nCertainly, a score there to make it a one-touchdown game with an entire quarter to play and Tyrone moving the ball with regularity could have changed things. But there\u2019s also every reason to believe Central Cambria running back Andrew O\u2019Saben would not have had any part of that.
\nThe senior workhorse at times willed his team to large chunks of Tyrone real estate. He finished with 265 yards on 32 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns, none bigger than his first carry of the third quarter when he broke free up the middle and sprinted past the Golden Eagles\u2019 secondary on his way to a 65-yard touchdown that made it 27-7.
\n\u201c(O\u2019Saben) seems to get stronger as the games goes on, as evidenced by that third-quarter run,\u201d Bussard said. \u201cHe\u2019s only 175 pounds, and to carry the ball as much as he does can be tough for someone that size. But he\u2019s able to do it because he worked hard in the weight room in the off-season.\u201d
\n\u201cHe kept making big play after big play,\u201d Franco said of O\u2019Saben. \u201cHe\u2019s a heck of a runner.\u201d
\nThe Golden Eagles expected O\u2019Saben to produce. What they may not have accounted for to the level they got it was the play of quarterback Jeff Wasilewski, who was playing only his second game at quarterback after breaking his leg in Week 1. He ran for only 3 yards on 3 carries, but that doesn\u2019t take into account the way he used his feet to keep plays alive and avoid the rush.
\nWasilewski completed 5 of 9 passes for 108 yards and two touchdowns without throwing an interception.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s learning week in and week out,\u201d Bussard said. \u201cThis is only the third time he\u2019s taken a snap as a quarterback. He\u2019s gaining experience as the playoffs go.\u201d
\nWasilewski looked like a seasoned veteran in the second quarter. With Central Cambria ahead 7-0 after an 11-yard O\u2019Saben touchdown run on the Devils\u2019 first possession, he orchestrated a 7-play, 67-yard drive that had his fingerprints all over it.
\nOn second-and-14 from the Tyrone 42, he hooked up with Marshall Lipnic for 10 yards, and then on fourth-and-1 it was Wasilewski\u2019s hard count that drew the Eagles offsides to keep the drive going.
\nLater, on second-and-6 from Tyrone\u2019s 20, Wasilewski rolled left, eluded a hard Tyrone pass rush, and found Ben Ridgeley open in the front corner of the end zone to give the Devils a 13-0 lead with 3:47 left in the half.
\n\u201cThat play was just an athlete making something happen,\u201d Bussard said. \u201cOur left tackle made a block to pick up the rush, and Ben converted his route to get in the throwing lane for Jeff. They hooked up, and that comes from all those years playing together.\u201d
\nTyrone answered with its first successful drive of the half. The march went 64 yards on 11 plays, and it allowed the Eagles to convert a couple first downs for the first time. Until the 8:19 mark, Tyrone had run only 9 offensive plays and punted three times.
\nTyrone got moving behind Mark Mingle, who started the series by rambling for 13 yards on a screen pass and rushed four times for 24 yards. A nine-yard completion from Levi Reihart to Shaffer converted a third down deep in Central Cambria territory, and Reihart capped the drive with a 1-yard run on a sneak to make it 13-7.
\nIt didn\u2019t take the Devils long to respond. On their ensuing series, Wasilewski found Mario Deyulis deep behind the Tyrone secondary for a 51-yard touchdown pass that restored Central Cambria\u2019s two-score lead, making it 21-7 at halftime after O\u2019Saben tacked on a 2-point conversion.
\n\u201cIn the first half, (Wasilewski) kept coming up with clutch plays, whether it was evading the rush or finding the open man,\u201d said Franco.
\nO\u2019Saben\u2019s run to start the second half could have closed the books on the Eagles, but on its second series, Tyrone found life. Larry Glace and Mingle ran three times for 12 yards, opening up the Eagles\u2019 play-action passing game. That allowed Desch to shake free on a double move on first down from the Central Cambria 45, and Reihart hit him in stride down the left sideline for a touchdown that made it 27-14 with 5:01 left in the quarter.
\nAfter Central Cambria stopped the Eagles\u2019 next foray into scoring territory, Tyrone used a 13-play, 74-yard drive to pull within one score. Desch and Reihart combined four times on the drive for 45 yards, including two fourth-down conversions. Glace then took it in from the 6 on an option pitch.
\nA holding call on the extra-point moved the ball back to the 13, and Shaffer missed his second PAT attempt, but Tyrone trailed 27-20 with 4:11 to play.
\nThanks to O\u2019Saben, a powerful offensive line, and a gritty call by Bussard, the Eagles never saw the ball again until just 11 seconds remained.
\nO\u2019Saben carried six times for 26 yards on Central Cambria\u2019s final, clock-draining possession, and none was bigger than his run for five yards on fourth-and-1 from the Tyrone 44 with two minutes to play.
\nBussard had called a timeout before the play, and he said he wanted to put the game in the hands of his offensive line.
\n“Up until that time, our line had established the line of scrimmage,” Bussard said. “Was it a dumb call, sure. Would I do it again, sure. I\u2019ve made a lot of dumb calls. The safe call would have been to punt it, but I didn\u2019t want to give their quarterback the ball with two minutes to go because he\u2019s dangerous.”
\nFranco was pleased his players continued to come back, even when trailing big in the second half.
\n\u201cOur kids didn\u2019t quit. They were down 27-7 and people were getting ready for them to put the subs in,\u201d Franco said.\u201d”We just kept coming.\u201d
\nGRID TIDBITS: Tyrone has played in the District semifinals every season since 2002. In seven games, three losses have come to teams from the Laurel Highlands Conference … Reihart finished 12-for-23 for 137 yards and a touchdown. His numbers allowed him to finish the season with the second highest yardage total in Tyrone history with 1,481 yards … Central Cambria had nine plays of 15 yards or more, six by O\u2019Saben.
\nCENTRAL CAMBRIA 27 TYRONE 20
\nTYRONE 0 7 7 6 – 20
\nCENTRAL CAMBRIA 7 14 6 0 – 27
\nFirst Quarter
\nC – O\u2019Saben 11 run (Delauten kick) 6:22
\nSecond Quarter
\nC – Ridgeley 20 pass from Wasilewski (PAT failed) 8:31
\nT – Reihart 1 run (Shaffer kick) 3:47
\nC – Deyulis 51 pass from Wasilewski (O\u2019Saben run) 2:52
\nThird Quarter
\nC – O\u2019Saben 65 run (PAT failed) 11:56
\nT – Desch 45 pass from Reihart (Shaffer kick) 5:01
\nFourth Quarter
\nT – Glace 6 run (PAT failed) 4:11
\nTeam Statistics
\n\tT \t C
\n1st Downs \t14 14
\nYards Rushing 104 279
\nPass Att.-Comp. 12-23 5-9
\nYards Passing 137 108
\nTotal Offense 241 387
\nInt. By 0 0
\nFum. Rec. 0-0 1-0
\nPunts-Avg. 5-42.6 4-28
\nPenalties\/Yards 6-35 6-42
\nIndividual Statistics
\nRUSHING
\nTYRONE – Glace 18-57; Mingle 9-48; Reihart 4-9; Weaver 1-(-5).
\nCENTRAL CAMBRIA – O\u2019Saben 32-265; Bono 1-6; Ridgeley 1-5; Wasilewski 3-3.
\nPASSING
\nTYRONE- Reihart 12-23-137, 1 TD, 0 Int.
\nCENTRAL CAMBRIA – Wasilewski 5-9-108, 2 TDs, 0 int.
\nRECEIVING
\nTYRONE – Desch 7-110; Mingle 1-13; Shaffer 2-10; Ingle 1-4; Glace 1-(-1).
\nCENTRAL CAMBRIA – Deyulis 1-51; Lipnic 2-30; Ridgeley 1-20; O\u2019Saben 1-7. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking aim While Tyrone quarterback Levi Reihart looks for a receiver, his teammates Jerrod Good (66), Dustin Weaver (63), John Shaffer (85), Jared Templton (55) and others give him time to check all his options. Tyrone dropped a semifinal District 6-AA game to Central Cambria 27-20 at Gray-Vets Memorial Field on Friday. (The Daily Herald\/Mary […]<\/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-49222","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\/49222","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=49222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}