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Red Tornado’s make turnover count in Tuesday night win over Williams Valley @GOBIGRED19 @WV_Vikings

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News

| September 23, 2020

Bryce Herb and Reed Witkoski meet for the pregame coin toss

 

It was a rare but not unheard of Tuesday night football in Mount Carmel. Four times previously, the Red Tornadoes have played Tuesday night games at the Silver Bowl, and on this Tuesday the Red Tornadoes use three turnovers to their advantage to keep ahead and eventually pull away from Williams Valley with a 43-28 win. “Yeah, that’s the difference” said Williams Valley head coach Tim Savage. “You can’t win if you give the ball away like that to a good team like Mt Carmel.”

The win didn’t come easy for the home team. Mt Carmel head coach John Darrah said “They definitely were hanging around, when we needed a big drive we were able to get it but it was definitely hairy at times. It was very important to get that first score, and then with the turnovers we were able to keep a two score lead so yeah, those turnovers were key.” Using a punishing ground game, Damon Dowkus, Tyler Owens, Reed Witkoski and Julien Steller racked up over 330 yards.

The Vikings were led by a career day from All State wide receiver Jesse Engle. Together, he and quarterback Bryce Herb connected 7 times for a whopping 212 yards and three touchdowns in the air.  “They had a lot of good good passes in their passing game but we had three big picks which were huge” said Darrah.

Mt. Carmel struck first on an 88 yard drive capped with a 15 yard run from Damon Dowkus, putting the home team up 7-0 with 2:44 left in the first quarter.

Herb tied the score at 7 with a one yard run. The score was set up by two great catches. Herb threw the ball up and Engle battled the defender, eventually making a spectacular catch to the Mt Carmel 39. Brady Evans then outlept a defender making a great catch at the one.

The Red Tornadoes got their first big advantage when Garrett Varano grabbed a tipped pass and raced 53 yards to the endzone. The two point play made it 15-7 with 6:22 left in the first half. “Three turnovers to none tells the story” said Savage.

 

The Vikings continued to battle through the air and stuck back quickly when Herb found Engle for an 83 yard, one play strike. The two point play failed keeping the score 15-13. “Luckily in those key situations, even with a young team, we didn’t panic and we just kept churning out the yards” said Darrah. The Red Tornadoes marched right back down field to close out the first half scoring on a 4 yard run by Witkoski to take a 22-13 lead at the break.

Getting the ball to start the second half, the run game continued to excel with Owens getting a big 33 yard gain and then finishing the opening drive of the second half with an 11 yard scoring run.

 

Williams Valley appeared to seize some momentum when, after another Herb to Engle td strike to make it a 29-21 game, the Viking defense forced a Red Tornado punt but that momentum was quickly snuffed out by another interception. “We flipped the the momentum at one time but they were able to get a turnover and use that to their advantage” said Savage. Mt Carmel turned that turnover into 7 more points to pull away 36-21.  Another interception snuffed out the next Viking drive.

The Vikings pulled within 8 points with 2:45 left in the game, but Mt Carmel recovered the on side kick attempt and capped the scoring with a 2 yard run from Julien Stellar.

Mt Carmel will face Bloomsburg on Saturday while Williams Valley has Nativity BVM.

More video HERE: https://twitter.com/PaFootballNews/media

 

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