Penns Valley football’s Ty Watson runs wild on Philipsburg-Osceola in 41-14 victory
Centre County wrestling fans know how dominant Penns Valley’s Ty Watson is on the wrestling mat.
On Friday night, Watson showed he can be just as dominant on the football field in the Rams’ 41-14 rout of Philipsburg-Osceola.
He is, however, one of the most humble athletes one would meet.
“It wasn’t all me. It was my team, team effort,” the junior said. “The line did a really good job blocking tonight. We stepped it up a gear from the last two weeks. We came together and played as a team. It feels really good to come out with the win.”
The running back had 177 yards rushing on 17 carries. Four of those carries were for touchdowns.
Penns Valley coach Martin Tobias credited not only Watson for his game, but said the last two weeks, which were losses after starting 3-0, really helped his team play the most complete game they’ve had all year against the Mounties.
“We really went back to some of the basics at practice,” Tobias said, “and tried to reinforce with the players on how to do the little things better. We wanted to come out, and we wanted to execute, that was the theme of the game. I felt really good about the execution overall.”
The Rams executed to the tune of 21 points in a span of six minutes in the first quarter, and rattled off 41 unanswered points.
They opened the game with a nine-play drive that lasted just over three minutes, and went 72 yards. The drive was finished off with Watson finding the end zone on an 11-yard run.
Four minutes later, Watson finished off a six-play drive with a 4-yard rushing score. On the play before the score, Watson went 32 yards to set it all up.
“He’s a special talent. We are very fortunate to have him as an offensive threat for our team,” Tobias said. “He’s very unselfish. He does the little things really well. He’s got good vision, good feet and a little bit of wiggle to him.”
P-O fumbled the ball on the next possession deep in its end of the field.
Penns Valley capitalized three plays later when quarterback Jackson Romig connected with John Meyer on a 24-yard score.
The Rams led 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.
On the Mounties’ next series, they looked to get things going. But on the second play of the drive, a snap went over quarterback Ben Gustkey’s head to their own 25. P-O was forced to punt from its own 30.
Penns Valley returned the punt to the Mounties’ 39. The Rams went rolling again on a seven-play drive that had Romig tally his second score through the air, this time connecting with Miles Brooks on a 4-yard pass on fourth-and-goal.
It was 28-0 with over 10 minutes left in the first half.
“We’re a young football team. People don’t like to hear that. We only have six seniors on the whole team,” P-O coach Jeff Vroman said.
“The bad snap when we finally got things rolling through the first quarter. We had a couple of turnovers on inside runs. We couldn’t afford to give them that field position with their speed and athleticism. It was the big difference early on in the football game.”
After the Rams forced a turnover on downs on the Mounties, who were nearing the end zone for the first time, Watson used two carries to go 64 yards for his third score of the game. His rushing touchdown was 60 yards — his longest of the night.
Penns Valley led 35-0 at the half.
P-O threw an interception on the second play of the second half. Watson used a 3-yard run on a drive that saw him carry the ball five times to tally the fourth and final touchdown.
“The thing is, when he hits that sweep, he hits it. When that hole opens up, he hits it,” Vroman said of Watson. “He follows that guard up through it. I saw that most of last year, and all of this year so far. He is definitely one of the better backs we’ve seen this year for sure. He runs hard, and has good speed. He did a nice job.”
The Mounties were able to get on the board late twice to close the game out.
Dayton Barger had a 15-yard rushing score with 2 minutes, 52 seconds left in the game.
P-O then cashed in off a Penns Valley fumble on the ensuing possession. Freshman quarterback Zack Meyers hit received Nick Johnson on a 23-yard bomb that saw Johnson tap his toes for the score with 30 seconds remaining in the game.
“It was a freshman quarterback throwing the ball there at the end. We made a lot of tackles in the last few defensive series,” Vroman said. “We’re young. We are learning. We could be sitting here right now, talking to you, and we are 3-3. If we take one play from the Huntingdon and Bellefonte games, but we’re not.
“We need to put the nose to the grindstone and get better. The kids know that, and we know that as a coaching staff. We just have to keep working to get better. We can’t worry about tonight. We got to now focus on next week and how to win.”
Penns Valley 41, Philipsburg-Osceola 14
Friday at Philipsburg
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Penns Valley 21 14 6 0 — 41
Philipsburg-Osecola 0 0 0 14 — 14
First Quarter
PV--Ty Watson 11 run (Watson kick), 8:44
PV--Watson 4 run (Watson kick), 4:14
PV--John Meyer 24 pass from Jackson Romig (Watson kick), 2:53
Second Quarter
PV--Miles Brooks 4 pass from Romig (Watson kick), 10:26
PV--Watson 60 run (Watson kick), 6:06
Third Quarter
PV--Watson 3 run (Run no good), 6:57
Fourth Quarter
P-O--Dayton Barger 15 run (Carson Long kick), 2:52
P-O--Nick Johnson 23 pass from Zack Meyers (Long kick), :30
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING--Penns Valley, Watson 17-177, Chase Shelley 4-10, Romig 3-9, Zach Rummel 3-8, Jarrett Stover 1-3, Kollin Brungart 1-0, Brooks 1-(-3), TEAM 1-(-18). Philipsburg-Osecola, Barger 10-70, Jakodi Jones 11-32, Dawson Snyder 2-10, Sam McDonald 2-10, Meyers 1-(-4), Ben Gustkey 4-(-11), TEAM 2-(-17).
PASSING--Penns Valley, Romig 8-11-105-2 TDs, Stover 0-1-0. Philipsburg-Osceola, Gustkey 5-16-80-1 INT, Meyers 1-1-23-1 TD.
RECEIVING--Penns Valley, Meyer 3-62, Brooks 3-24, Watson 1-21, Danin Kerstetter 1-8. Philipsburg-Osceola, Johnson 2-64, Snyder 2-13, Jones 1-18, McDonald 1-8.
INTERCEPTIONS--Penns Valley, Josh Lieb 1.
Records: Penns Valley 4-2, Philipsburg-Osceola 1-5
Next game: Conemaugh Valley at Penns Valley, Friday, 7 p.m.; Philipsburg-Osceola at Bald Eagle Area, Friday, 7 p.m.
Bald Eagle football knocks off 5-0 Tyrone 31-7 on the road
TYRONE — Bald Eagle understood its assignment. A 5-0 Tyrone team stood ahead of the Eagles on Friday night with sophomore quarterback Ashton Walk and senior wide receiver Ross Gampe at the helm.
Walk threw just one 16-yard touchdown pass to Dravyn Crowell to tie the game at 7-7 with 5:18 left in the first quarter. The Eagles went on to score 24 unanswered points and won 31-7 over the Golden Eagles. Before Friday’s game, Bald Eagle had played Troy, Clearfield and Montoursville, three teams that have combined for a 15-3 record this season.
Eagles head coach Jesse Nagle believes that his battle-tested team was up for Friday’s challenge, one not unlike what they’ve seen previously.
“I think it was big time — going into Troy, and they’re outstanding and crushing everybody; Clearfield has an outstanding team; Montoursville is very, very good,” Nagle said. “That facility down there and environment is unbelievable. Our kids battled in all three of those games. Penns Valley is an excellent football team. So, we knew that Tyrone hasn’t really been tested yet. We felt that we could play with them, and I’m really, really proud of the guys. I think it helped us tremendously having to play all of those teams up front.”
Bald Eagle got on the board first with a 1-yard touchdown rush by Carson Nagle with 8:35 left in the first quarter. Following his run, Walk threw his touchdown pass to Crowell at the 5:18 mark in the first. Carson Nagle threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Kahale Burns to take a 14-7 lead with 39.7 seconds left in the first half.
The Eagles marched down the field after regaining possession in the third quarter. While they couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone, Gavin Burns trotted onto the field for a 22-yard field-goal attempt that went through the uprights and gave Bald Eagle a 17-7 lead with 6:42 remaining in the third quarter.
After stymieing the Golden Eagles early in the fourth quarter, the Eagles received the ball at the Tyrone 31-yard line.
Two plays later, Tre Greene had a 25-yard rush and was grabbed by the face mask to put the ball at the 3-yard line. After a number of penalties, backtracking and advancing, Greene punched the ball in from the 3-yard line with 6:04 left in the game, giving Bald Eagle a 24-7 lead.
The Eagles later capped off the win with a 12-yard run by Cameron Dubbs with 1:08 remaining for a 31-7 lead.
Bellefonte football falls 31-0 at home to Hollidaysburg
BELLEFONTE — There’s little sweeter than earning your first win of the year in shutout fashion, and that’s exactly what Hollidaysburg Area Senior High School did Friday night.
Behind a dominant third-quarter barrage, the Golden Tigers took down host Bellefonte 31-0. Each team is now 1-5 on the season.
The game started slow with neither team registering a point in the first quarter, despite the Raiders’ productive second offensive set, a 48-yard drive that ended in a blocked field goal and substantial return.
Including the turnover on downs by Hollidaysburg on the previous drive, the two teams combined for five consecutive turnovers — after another two giveaways via downs followed the field-goal block.
While there wasn’t technically a fifth straight, there may as well have been after the Golden Tigers recovered a muffed punt deep in their opponent’s end.
Hollidaysburg took full advantage of the prime field position and scored with 3:56 left in the half.
Carrying a 7-0 out of the locker room, the visiting Golden Tigers went off in frame No. 3. Outscoring Bellefonte 17-0, things were clicking for the road team on both sides of the ball.
In the second half alone, the Raiders punted five times and turned the ball over on downs while up against Hollidaysburg’s defense.
“Our defense has been playing great all year long,” head coach Homer DeLattre said. “We worked in practice all week long..”
Hollidaysburg’s first four contests came against squads with a combined record of 22-6 to this point, including undefeated State College Area High School and Fort Hill.
“It’s challenging, you know, we know that,” DeLattre said. “We’re just gonna keep working hard to get better.
“We’re getting better, kids are working hard in practice. Even though we were 0-5, they keep working hard.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2022 at 12:01 AM.
