Bearcats cruise past Mounties in finale

Ron Bracken For the CDT

PHILIPSBURG — A season that began with bright promise ground to a disappointing end Friday night as Huntingdon defeated Philipsburg-Osceola 30-15 at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium.

CDT photo/Craig Houtz

Philipsburg-Osceola’s Steve Rusnak dives into the end zone past Huntingdon’s Scott Minor for a second-quarter touchdown on Friday. The Bearcats pulled away with 17 points in the second half to down the Mounties 30-15.

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The Mounties, who opened the year with a win over rival Bald Eagle Area, finished with a 3-7 record and missed the District 6 playoffs for the second year in a row.

And this game, like several others during the course of the season, was within the Mounties’ grasp only to slip away.

“This game was the story of our season,” said P-O coach Jeff Vroman. “We were close. We had momentum going our way a couple of times but we never were able to make it swing the whole way in our direction. We lost a lot of tough games this year. But you have to make plays and tonight we didn’t do that.”

The kicking game produced several big plays in this game, maybe none bigger than when Mountie Zach Czap fumbled the first punt of the game and the Bearcats recovered on the P-O 10.

On the very next play, Huntingdon’s Houston Riley bolted in for the score with 8:56 left in the first quarter.

“Turning the ball over on the 10, that’s giving them six points,” Vroman said.

Huntingdon increased its lead to 13-0 in the second quarter when Riley tightroped the sideline and went 60 yards for the touchdown. Andrew Hallahan kicked the PAT.

But P-O rallied by driving 65 yards in seven plays, all on the ground. Vroman inserted Reggie Coval at quarterback for the drive and he responded with gains of 15 and 17 yards to keep the drive going. The critical play in the march was a 12-yard gain by Cody Curtis on a fourth-and-2 call from the Huntingdon 22. Steve Rusnak went up the middle from 10 yards out for the touchdown and Czap made it 13-7 with 6:17 left in the half.

The Mounties gambled on a fake punt at their own 37 to open the third quarter, and the move failed as Czap was nailed for a two-yard loss on fourth down, giving Huntingdon the ball at the P-O 35.

P-O’s defense hung tough, forcing Huntingdon to try a field goal from 26 yards out. Hallahan nailed it to set the score at 16-7 at the 7:07 mark.

“Hallahan has the ability to get the score above eight, to make it a two-possession game,” said Huntingdon coach Jim Zauzig.

The Bearcats took control of the game on their next possession.

After forcing a three-and-out they got the ball on their own 44. A penalty moved them back to the 31 but Nathan Betts hooked up with Matt Bennett for a 36-yard gain and on the next play, Riley bolted 33 yards for a touchdown to make it 23-7 with 4:26 left in the third quarter.

P-O got on the board on a one-yard run by Mike Marcinko with 1:31 left in the quarter and Czap scored on the swinging gate play for the two-point conversion to cut Hunting-don’s lead to 23-15.

The special teams came up big for both teams in the fourth quarter.

Betts, who was subbing for injured regular Bearcat punter Andrew Cerett, punted from the P-O 38 and Riley was able to down the ball at the Mountie 1.

P-O began to move the ball from there and got out to its own 27, but on third down Marcinko was sacked for a 17-yard loss by Jake Reid, forcing a punt. Czap got off a 62-yarder that rolled dead at the Huntingdon 28.

“I was thinking, ‘Don’t tell me they’re going to make a 99-yard drive,” Zauzig said. “Last year on the first drive of the game, they went 90 yards in 18 plays. That style of offense can chew up the clock. This was a game of peaks and valleys for us. At times we let off the accelerator, like when we were ahead 13-0, but we told the kids Jeff Vroman will not let his team let up.”

“That was the turning point,” Vroman said of the punt that was downed at the 1. “After we scored, they got that punt that gave us the ball at the 1.”

Huntingdon went to its patented ball-control running game when it got the ball back and ran off 11 plays, all on the ground before Scott Minor took it in from the 8 with 32 seconds left in the game and Hallahan kicked the PAT for the final.

“They really hurt us with their inside running game,” Vroman said. “They did a nice job with that. They were successful running inside the tackles and that’s what won the game for them.”