Penns Valley seals the deal with late-game interception for win over Philipsburg-Osceola
With the clock ticking and just a few yards to the end zone, Philipsburg-Osceola had a chance to tie the game with a touchdown and two-point conversion against Penns Valley.
Not so fast. That’s Ty Watson’s music.
The Penns Valley cornerback, who tripled as a running back and kicker in Friday night’s game, picked off Ben Gustkey with less than two minutes remaining in the game. Watson rushed for an 80-yard touchdown and an extra point to finish off the Mountaineers for a 35-20 victory for the Rams.
“I was listening to my coaches who were telling me to stay home,” Watson said. “I was looking for the quarterback rolling out. I saw it, went out in the flats and he threw it right up. I stayed home, did my job and it was awesome. It was a good team effort. We had a good drive going for the defense and it was really nice for us.”
The game was marred by turnovers for both teams in the second half. Gustkey threw his second interception of the game in Philipsburg-Osceola’s first drive of the third quarter, followed by Penns Valley turning the ball over on downs. Tanner Illgen later fumbled for Penns Valley twice and Gustkey threw two more interceptions. It was a game that Penns Valley head coach Martin Tobias would like to clean up in future play.
“I just keep thinking about the turnovers. I keep thinking about the turnovers that both teams had,” Tobias said. “The turnovers were the thing that set the tone for the game. It set us up for what ended up being the icing on the cake, the nail on the coffin, whatever you want to call it. At the end and along the way, it gave us a score. Gavin Ryan had the interception that he ran back for the pick 6 — it was a game of turnovers. We’ve got to clean a lot of things up, we really do.”
Penns Valley began the game with a 10-play drive that lasted 4:23 and resulted in a 2-yard rushing touchdown by Illgen. Philipsburg-Osceola answered with a flurry of scores later in the quarter. Gustkey marched the Mountaineers down the field with 4:13 left in the quarter and tossed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Matt Martin for 5-play drive, lasting 1:57. Philipsburg-Osceola immediately regained possession with a recovered kickoff by Luke Hughes. Regaining possession at the Penns Valley 28-yard line, Gustkey later threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Nick Johnson to give the Mountaineers a 14-7 lead with 11:53 left in the second quarter.
Watson had the first of his two scores with a 10-yard rushing touchdown with 9:28 left in the first half to tie 14-14. Penns Valley junior defensive lineman Gavin Ryan intercepted Gustkey for a 40-yard interception return for a touchdown with 7:34 left in the first half to give Penns Valley a 20-14 lead. Hunter Lyons later blocked a punt for Penns Valley. With the Rams set up at the Philipsburg-Osceola 12-yard line, quarterback Jackson Romig threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Miles Brooks and Illgen had a 3-yard rush for the 2-point conversion to give Penns Valley a 28-14 lead with 4:52 left in the half.
The Mountaineers began their march toward a possible comeback with 4:46 left on the clock. Leading an 11-play drive down the field, Gustkey punched the ball into the end zone for a 1-yard score and Philipsburg-Osceola trailed just 28-20 with five seconds left in the half.
After a third quarter that was littered with turnovers, Penns Valley finally broke through with Watson’s interception and 80-yard rushing touchdown with less than a minute left in the game to give them a 35-20 lead.
Philipsburg-Osceola head coach Jeff Vroman saw a window for his team to capitalize. In defeat, he’s still proud of the effort that his players showed with reduced numbers.
“The effort’s there. I told the kids that. We can’t fault them for effort,” Vroman said. “The kids are playing their butts off. They’re having breakdowns here and there — it’s high school football, but we had some timely, or should I say untimely, breakdowns that cost us the football game. They made a few more plays than we did. We turned the ball over. Then, the punt I thought changed the momentum of the game. The first time, we pinned them pretty deep. We have an alignment issue with a 5-yard penalty that brought it back. That’s a lot of self-inflicted things that you just can’t do.”
Penns Valley 35, Philipsburg-Osceola 20
(Friday at Spring Mills)
Total Yards
Penns Valley: 286
P-O: 239
Passing
Penns Valley: 12-for-20, 136 yards, TD
Jackson Romig 6-for-13, 46 yards, TD
Rylee Brungart 6-for-7, 90 yards
P-O: Ben Gutskey (P-O) 6-for-15, 93 yards, 2 TDs, 4 INTs
Rushing
Penns Valley: 27 rushes, 150 yards, 3 TDs, 2 fumbles
Ty Watson 9 rushes, 107 yards, 2 TDs
Miles Brooks 3 rushes, 41 yards
Tanner Illgen 6 rushes, 12 yards, TD, 2 fumbles
Rylee Brungart 8 rushes, 8 yards
Jackson Romig 1 rush, -18 yards
P-O: 40 rushes, 127 yards, TD
Matt Martin 18 rushes, 112 yards
Luke Hughes 10 rushes, 28 yards
Andrew Faust 6 rushes, 6 yards
Ben Gustkey 6 rushes, -19 yards, TD
Receiving
Turnovers
Penns Valley: 4
P-O: 4
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 11:15 PM.
