Walnut Ridge shakes off rust to defeat Centennial 36-14 @pafootballnews @walnutridgescot @Centennialstars @thebhscougars @CapCityPreps

Tagged under: Beyond The Keystone

David Burnworth | September 18, 2020

This night was a weird one. I had called Beechcroft high school and was added to their pass list. I get to the school, only to be told I was taken off of the pass list because of A-league rules stating no media. First I want to give thanks to the Marion Franklin coach, who tried to get me in as their yearbook photographer. After that failed. I made the drive to another city league school, Walnut Ridge, and showed my credentials, and walked right in. After getting in I contacted the A.D. from Briggs high school to confirm my spot at their Saturday afternoon game and he said everything was good to go and he had not been informed of any such rule.

I tried to find online rosters and only found one partial roster for each school, that only had a few players numbers with their names. Those rosters were on Hudl and MaxPreps. So I am sorry for missing names and only inserting numbers. This one was scoreless after one-quarter of play. In the first quarter, there were some nice plays that took place. One was A shot punt by the Stars that hit off of A Walnut Ridge player, after the ball bounced around #15 of the Stars picked the ball up made a nice little run that gave his team The first down. The Scots looked to have a 40-yard touchdown by Javarus Leach but a flag was thrown on the play that resulted in the touchdown being called back. #58 from the stars would stop Javarus Leach of the Scots to set up A fourth and 18.

In the 2nd quarter Vari Adams from Walnut Ridge stopped #11 for A 5-yard loss and then a short time later, the Scots got on the board, when Damien Whaley fielded a punt and di not stop running until he had gone 41 yards for the score. #15 would convert the two-point play, making the score 8-0 Walnut Ridge with 11:09 left on the clock. Malik Tate would stop the Stars #11 for the 6-yard loss. Just A short time later the Stars defense got a nice play from #7, who stopped Leach for a loss of two. #11 for the Stars would get to Howard Thornton for a short loss to bring up a punting situation, at the 5:25 mark. Charles Dean would scramble around and then throw A pass to #2, who was wide opened for a big gain, that had A 15-yard face mask penalty added on to the end of the play. The Stars #7 would find pay dirt from 5 yards out, the point after by Jacob M Barnes was missed leaving the score 8-6, with 1:00 left in the half. Jarvi caught a long pass to take the ball to the Stars 27-yard line and from there Thornton raced in for the 27-yard score to make this A 14-6 game.

With 11:38 left in the third quarter, after the ball was fumbled twice on the same play Malik Ali would make the recovery. The Scots had a touchdown by Thornton called back on another penalty. Thornton would throw a nice crisp pass to William Felts but the ball fell through the receiver’s hands and fall harmlessly to the ground. Thornton would slip while scrambling and be tap down by for a big loss. Thornton appeared to hit Felts, who made a nice diving catch but was ruled out of bounds to keep this a 14-6 game, with 8:05 left in the third. The Scots defense made quick work of the Stars offense to get the ball back to their own offense. From there Thornton would hit Leach for a 25-yard touchdown. #2 got A nice block, I believe from #12, then made a nice move to score. #4 made this A 22-6 game, with his 2pt conversion run. The Stars finally got moving in the right direction, when #1 broke off A 30-yard run. In the last 2:52 seconds of the quarter, Leach and Jamarius Dinkins from Walnut Ridge took turns laying big hits on #2 from the Stars. The drive that looked promising ended right after the back to back big hits.

Thornton found Melvaun Wallace for A gain of nearly 15 yards to set up his 30-yard touchdown run, to make this a 28-6 game, with 7:45 remaining.
The Stars offense got a nice catch from #21 taking the ball down to the Scots 5-yard line. From there #5 worked his way in for the 5-yard score. A two-point conversion would make this a 28-14 game, with 5:12 remaining. The last score of this one came with:57 left, when #4 from the Scots scored from A yard out #39 plowed in on the two-point conversion run to make the final score 36-14 Scots.