‘Well-oiled’ Central football runs wild on Penns Valley

After watching Central light up the scoreboard, Penns Valley coach Martin Tobias summed up the opponent succinctly — his team played “a well-oiled machine.”

The Scarlet Dragons took just two minutes to put the first score of the night on the board in a 51-8 rout of the Rams on Friday night.

“We got beat by a really good football team,” Tobias said. “They have a lot of games under their belt. They’ve had multiple playoff runs over the years. They were very methodical today.”

Penns Valley had its hands full with Central’s Trystan Detwiler early — and often — in the game.

Detwiler took the first play from scrimmage 58 yards down the visiting sideline and was stopped at the 1-yard line. Three plays later, Detwiler followed his fullback up the middle and into the end zone.

Detwiler saw the end zone two others times Friday night and finished with 185 yards rushing on 14 carries. He had 133 rushing yards in the first quarter alone.

“It’s tough to stop any one guy on their team,” Tobias said. “They have various weapons. They are big and physical. They execute. You got to appreciate what they do up front with their line.”

The Rams surrendered two other rushing scores and two more through the air. In all, the Scarlet Dragons had three other players cross the goal line.

With 20 seconds left in the half, Central’s Preston Karstetter connected with wide-open tight end Austin Garner up the middle of the field for an 83-yard score. Penns Valley trailed 42-0 going into the half.

Following another Scarlet Dragons’ scoring drive, the Rams never gave up.

In their second possession of the second half, Penns Valley’s Ryan Ripka took the handoff from quarterback Justin Sands and quickly cut back to the Rams’ sideline, broke two tackles and sped 65 yards up the sideline for the lone score of the night.

“That shows what he is capable of, when he is given the opportunity,” Tobias said. “Teams have kept him bottled up. He was able to pop through on one. That is what we are looking for on a more consistent basis is those burst plays from him.”

The only other points in the second half came on a botched snap.

The Rams were pinned deep on their side of the field after a Central drive stalled in the redzone. A personal foul penalty pushed Penns Valley to its own 6-yard line. The snap went over Sands’ head and out of the end zone for a safety.

Even though his team gave up over 500 yards of offense, Tobias opted to look on the bright side. He said it might not have shown on the scoreboard, but there were some things that stuck out.

“We’ve been working with our kids,” he said. “There were some things we did better tonight then we did last week.

“We need more consistent effort and execution play in and play out. We didn’t roll over and didn’t quit. We kept plugging away. Whenever you’ve got a group of kids that continue to play for you as a coach and play with each other as teammates, you are always going to have a chance.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2017 at 12:50 AM with the headline "‘Well-oiled’ Central football runs wild on Penns Valley."