Strong second half lifts Bangor to victory 29 to 7 Thursday night !

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News

Daniel Reed | September 4, 2022

Ashton Kluska’s 3 touchdowns secures win over Jim Thorpe !

By the end of the first half, you could tell we were in for one heck of a battle as the Slaters only clung to a 7 to 0 lead. The first quarter of action saw both teams trade punts on their opening possessions. On the Olympians next possession, Jim Thorpe would drive down the field to the Bangor 4 yard line before turning the ball over by fumbling just before reaching the goal-line, the ball rolling out of bounds in the endzone. Later in the first quarter, the Slaters would drive 80 yards for the first score of the game when, Ashton Kluska scored his first of three touchdowns on the evening with a 23 yard run up the middle right, to make it 7 to 0. “The hole wasn’t really there at first, then I saw the opening and was just able to get outside and make it to the end zone,” Kluska said.

Nothing amounted to much during the second quarter as both squads would go back and fourth in a defensive battle.

The third quarter would start off with Olympians kicking to the Slaters, Greg Campbell-jr would return the kick 70 yards to the Olympians’ 25. The drive would eventually stall, but that wouldn’t stop Bangor from extending their lead to 10 when junior kicker Landen Smith would hit a 26 yard field goal. Later in the quarter, So-Justin Yescavage, who finished the game with 10 catches for 138 yards, gave Jim Thorpe some life when he would haul in the pass and go 42-yards for the touchdown down the sideline to close the gap to a 10 to 7 lead for the Slaters. Bangor would add the their lead at the end of the quarter again when he would take the handoff up the middle about 4 yards for touchdown number 2, the score now 17 to 7.

In the fourth quarter we went with the score still 17 to 7 Bangor. Kluska’s third and final touchdown came with 9:38 to go in the game when he would scamper into the endzone from 31 yards out to pad the Slater lead to 23 to 7. “ We knew it was gonna be a physical game, but we hit them in the mouth every play, you could see they were wearing down. Kluska said. “ Ashton would finish the game with over 100 yards on 11 carries along with his 3 touchdowns. Eric Striba, the Slaters quarterback, would finish the game with 87 yards passing on 9 of 12 passing, 74 yards rushing on 12 carries and 1 touchdown, a 34 yard keeper to extend the Bangor lead to 22, eventually being the final score of the game, ending in a 29 to 7 victory for the Slaters over the Olympians.

Game Stats:
Jim Thorpe:
First Downs – 16
Rushes/Yards – 23/61
Passing/Yards – 19 of 34 – 2int – 215yds
Total Yards – 271

Bangor:
First Downs – 15
Rushes/Yards – 37/168
Passing/Yards – 7 of 9 – 0 – 86yds
Total Yards – 254

Up Next:
Bangor(2-0) travels to Southern Lehigh(1-1) *chance to start the season 3-0 for the first time since 2012*
Jim Thorpe(0-2) hosts Salisbury Township(0-2)

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