Dragons roll over ailing Mounties

Vinny Pezzimenti

ROARING SPRING — This week wasn't exactly kind to a Philipsburg-Osceola football team that, to begin with, was coming off back-to-back disheartening losses.

Over the course of the days leading up to Friday night’s meeting with Central, several Mounties were hit by the flu or other various ailments.

“Right now,” coach Jeff Vroman said, “our football team is very sick.”

It didn’t help that P-O was up against a Central team considered one of the best in the state among Class AA programs.

The potent Dragons played every bit that role, stomping the Mounties 42-7.

P-O was without three starters — quarterback Reggie Coval, lineman Cody Pepperday and end/linebacker Keith Smolko — and Vroman said missing close to a dozen players throughout the week affected the Mounties’ preparation for Central.

“But you can’t use that as an excuse,” Vroman said.

Against Central, it probably would have mattered very little if the Mounties were at full strength, anyway.

Dual-threat quarterback Lucas Runk rushed for 129 yards and two touchdowns and added 171 yards through the air while the Scarlet Dragons’ first-team defense emphatically kept its season-long shutout streak alive.

Central, 4-0 and ranked sixth in Pennsylvania by the Patriot News of Harrisburg, has outscored its four opponents 155-37. Three of the victories have come against Centre County teams.

P-O, which lost its third straight game to drop to 1-3, just happened to be the next victim.

“We took a pretty good beating tonight,” senior Zack Czap said.

The Mounties actually led 7-0 in the first quarter after linebacker Kurtis Walker returned a Runk fumble 90 yards for a touchdown. They were also in prime position to pull within a touchdown before halftime, but sophomore quarterback Mike Marcinko, who was making his first varsity start, was stripped of the ball on a sack by Eric Keefer.

Runk ran 70 yards for a touchdown on the next play, giving the Dragons a 28-7 lead six seconds before intermission.

“That was just a bad series of events,” Czap said.

Lucas Blattenberger and Jarron Knisely also ran for two touchdowns each for the Dragons, who piled up 342 yards of offense. Shane Cafferty caught four passes for 67 yards from Runk, who was 8 of 13 through the air.

Central had little trouble with the Mounties’ misdirection running game. P-O managed just 82 total yards (40 on the ground) and six first downs, three of which came on its final drive against Central’s reserves.

“(Linebacker) Trent Forshey will tell the coaches and the scout team if we’re running the play wrong, because he knows exactly what Philipsburg is going to run,” Central coach A.J. Hoenstine said.

Czap had four receptions for 42 yards. Marcinko was 4 of 10 with an interception and was sacked five times, three registered by Keefer.

At least the game started positively for the Mounties. On Central’s opening drive, Runk had a 31-yard touchdown run called back on an illegal block foul and the junior fumbled two plays later while trying to grind out a first down on third-and-6. Walker went the other way untouched.

“It was good that we could get on the board early,” Czap said, “but we just didn’t capitalize on our next possession.”

Instead, Blattenberger scored on 3- yard runs on consecutive possessions. Runk hit Josten Hardy for 35 yards on the first drive and added a 48-yard strike to Jordon Saylor on the second.

“Big plays,” Vroman said. “That’s been there M.O.”

Knisely put the Dragons ahead 21-7 with a 9-yard touchdown.

The Mounties drove to the Central 14 on passes of 34 and six yards to Czap just before halftime, but Marcinko was sacked on consecutive plays, losing the ball on the second.

With 20 seconds left, the Dragons were content on running the clock out, but Runk broke through the middle of the defense and sailed down the sideline for the touchdown.

“It’s just missed tackles,” Vroman said. “That’s something we’ve always worked on. Against a quality kid like that, if you don’t take care of (tackling), he’s going to hurt you.”

Runk scored from a yard out in the third quarter and Knisely added a 28-yard touchdown early in the fourth to complete the scoring.

P-O meets rival Bellefonte next Friday, with hopes of ending a slide that has also included losses to Clearfield and Lewistown.

“It’s consistency,” Vroman said. “We haven’t played with much consistency since probably the second half of the Clearfield game. It’s in spurts. We can’t have that.”