Philipsburg-Osceola football unable to keep up with Central’s high-powered offense
Philipsburg-Osceola put its 1-0 record to the test against the 2-0 Central Scarlet Dragons Friday night. The Mountaineers kept it close through a quarter, but the high-powered Central offense — led by sophomore quarterback Jeff Hoenstine — took over from there on the Scarlet Dragons’ way to a 40-14 victory.
The Mountaineers were able to stop Central on its first drive of the game after the Scarlet Dragons drove 64 yards down to the P-O 13 yard line, but that wouldn’t happen much the rest of the game.
The Dragons stopped the Mountaineers and quickly scored on a 69-yard pass from Hoenstine to Hunter Klotz to take a 6-0 lead. They forced a P-O three-and-out and marched down the field until Hoenstine found Devin Boyles for a 26-yard touchdown on the first play of the second quarter. A failed two-point conversion by Central left the game at 12-0.
P-O once again struggled to get its offense going, but managed to stifle the Central offense on its next drive, but a muffed punt with 7:41 on the clock in the second gave the Dragons a second opportunity and Hoenstine was able to deliver. He found Boyles in the end zone to stretch the lead to 19-0 after the extra point.
The Mountaineers struggled to put drives together and a penalty and negative plays gave Central the ball at the 50 and the Dragons didn’t take long to capitalize. Hoenstine hit Klotz on the first play of the drive to grow Central’s lead to 26-0.
That’s where the lead stood at halftime, when Philipsburg-Osceola head coach Jeff Vroman told WHVL that his players were showing growth in his system.
“I saw some really good things,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s still things we’re disappointed about, but these kids are growing. They’re starting to learn the system and I get a lot of the mistakes. The effort is what I’m looking at. At times I wasn’t happy with the effort, and that’s something that I can’t tolerate and I won’t tolerate. But for the most part we’re playing hard.”
The head coach added that he wanted his team to make more plays on the ball when it was in the air but the Mountaineers were unable to improve from that standpoint on the Dragons’ first deep shot in the second half. The Dragons scored with 5:14 on the clock in the third quarter on a 62-yard pass from Hoenstine to Josh Beisinger to extend the lead to 33.
P-O was able to get its first points on the board on the ensuing kick return when Hunter Weitoish ran it back for a 76-yard touchdown to make it a 33-8 game.
The Mountaineers were able to grab some momentum from there, stopping Central and driving down the field. They capped their possession off with a 35-yard rushing touchdown by senior Kaleb Stamm to make it a 33-14 game.
That was as close as P-O would get in the game. The Scarlet Dragons went on to score again on a Parker Gregg touchdown run to reach the final of 40-14.
Despite the loss, Vroman said his team’s second-half effort was something it could build off of moving forward.
“I thought we came out with some enthusiasm,” he told the Centre Daily Times. “Sometimes that’s tough to do in high school football, especially after being down 26-0 at the half. The effort, I liked. There’s a lot of mistakes that we still got to get cleaned up. That’s, I get it, they’re learning a new system and we’re still struggling with some of that. But, for the most, I was very, very pleased with the effort and that’s what I told them here at the end after we were done.”
The Scarlet Dragons will try to stay undefeated when they travel to Huntingdon to take on the Bearcats next week, while the Mountaineers will head to Clearfield to take on the Bison Friday night.
CENTRAL 40, PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA 14
(Friday at Philipsburg)
Central 6 20 7 7 — 40
Philipsburg-Osceola 0 0 7 7 — 14
First Quarter
C — Klotz 69 pass from Hoenstine (kick failed)
Second Quarter
C — Boyles 26 pass from Hoenstine (2-pt failed)
C — Boyles 6 pass from Hoenstine (Austin Keith kick)
C — Klotz 50 pass from Hoenstine (Keith kick)
Third Quarter
C — Biesinger 62 pass from Hoenstine (Keith kick)
PO — Weitoish 76 return (Whitehead pass)
Fourth Quarter
PO — Stamm 35 run (2-pt failed)
C — Gregg 1 run (Keith kick)
Top Rusher: C: Gregg 8-34-1. PO: Stamm 16-102-1.
Top Passer: C: Hoenstine 13-23-5 299. PO: Whitehead 6-11 37.
Top Receiver: C: Klotz 3-128-2. PO: Depto 2-17.
Interceptions: C: none. PO: none.
Next Game: Central at Huntingdon, Friday. Philipsburg-Osceola at Clearfield, Friday.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 10:29 PM.
