Tigers Rebound With Impressive Win
Tagged under: District 2, District 4, Gameday Hub, News
Dave Fegley | October 21, 2023
SCA knocks off previously unbeaten Wyoming Area
When it comes to being a Southern Columbia football fan, the loyal supporters have witnessed just about everything that the sport has to offer. On Friday night, the fans that made the trip up to Jake Sobeski Stadium to watch their Tigers battle with a Wyoming Area team that entered unbeaten got quite the experience.
Most importantly, the black and gold supporters left satisfied as the Tigers knocked off the Warriors 34-7.
Although the majority of the fan experience was the usual positives from the program that has a record 13 PIAA titles, there was a variety of emotions throughout the night that ended with pouring rain in the final two quarters.
There was a sense of awe, déjà vu, and speechlessness along the way.
Just seven days after the Tigers allowed Mount Carmel Area’s offense to shockingly go through them with relative ease, Southern shut down a Wyoming Area offense that had been rolling all season.
In last week’s SCA loss, the Red Tornadoes quarterback Cole Spears was racking up yards through the air as if he was Peyton Manning. His leading receiver Xavier Diaz seemed as if he was Tyreek Hill’s clone. Luke Blessing ran like Marshawn Lynch in his “Beast Mode” days as the Tigers gave up 40 points for just the 14th time in the last 40 years.
The Tigers flipped the script in week nine.
“We came into the game motivated. We were fired up after losing our first game of the season last week against Mount Carmel,” said Tiger senior standout Isaac Carter who returned after missing the past two weeks with a concussion. “I know I was fired up to get back out on the field and we just wanted to redeem ourselves against another good team.”
The sense of awe was how quickly the Tigers were able to put that disappointing performance behind them and take command in just a week’s time of regrouping.
The Warriors leading rusher, Lehigh commit Aaron Crossley, came into Friday’s game with over 1,200 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns. He was limited to just 46 yards on 15 carries against the Tigers.
“When you are playing against one of the best running backs in the state, you have to tackle consistently. We preached that all week in practice and really worked on it because we missed way too many last week. This week, we put it to them,” said SCA defensive end Colden Bloom.
After allowing Spears and Diaz to break MCA school records in the passing game a week ago, Southern’s secondary closed out the win against Wyoming Area by registering eight straight incompletions and a pick six.
The déjà vu factor came into play midway through the third quarter on a punt return by Southern’s Louden Murphy.
Last season, ironically enough against Wyoming Area, Murphy was the recipient of a pitch from Braeden Wisloski in the middle of a play that resulted in Murphy scoring a touchdown. After earlier scoring on a long touchdown carry in the 55-28 victory at Tiger Stadium, Murphy’s stat line at the time after that pitch play touchdown was one carry for 118 yards and two touchdowns.
Yes, two touchdowns on just one official carry due to the rule of only compiling rushing yardage in that scenario since he didn’t get the initial handoff to start the play.
“I remember that game, and it was cool to hear about the way the stats work with that type of play,” Murphy said.
Last night, Murphy returned a punt for more than 50 yards before pitching it to Garrett Garcia who took the ball down to the seven-yard line. The next play, Murphy scored to give Southern a 21-7 lead.
“I felt the ball coming out. I mean I’m not going to say it wasn’t on purpose. However, it wasn’t going through my mind until I saw him and just kind of pushed it over to him,” said Murphy.
One minute and six seconds later, Bloom intercepted a pass from his defensive end position and returned it 19 yards for a score.
“Defensively, you don’t get the ball thrown to you on purpose. When you have an opportunity, you have to take advantage of it because getting an interception as a defensive lineman is pretty rare,” said Bloom. “When everyone on the field is making good plays, it opens up the opportunity to make a great play at times.”
Garcia, who topped 1,000 rushing yards for the season in the win, scored the only touchdown of the fourth quarter on a short plunge.
“It’s pretty awesome getting 1,000 yards. I couldn’t do it though without my guys up front and the two halfbacks blocking,” said Garcia who missed all of last season with a torn ACL.
The speechlessness came during a bizarre sequence in the final moments of the first half.
After Carter Madden put Southern in front with a four-yard rushing touchdown, and then Josh Mruk tied the game with an 18-yard catch from Anthony DeLucca, the Tigers went back in front for good with 10:32 to play in the second quarter as Blake Wise found Murphy open for a 44-yard TD pass.
Neither team was able to get anything going over the next nine minutes, but eventually Southern had an opportunity to double its lead.
Then, an unexplainable scenario happened that unfortunately involved the officiating crew.
The Tigers somehow managed to turn a 2nd and 41, following a string of three penalties from inside their own 30, into a 1st and goal in the span of four plays.
Following completions to Madden and Murphy, Southern picked up a first down on a fourth down run by Garcia. On the following play, Wise was hit late resulting in a personal foul penalty that put the Tigers inside the Warriors’ 10-yard line.
After the ball was moved half the distance to the goal, the scoreboard that read 10.2 seconds was set to wind down. With two timeouts remaining, it was obvious to everyone in the stadium that Southern would burn one to stop the clock.
Apparently, it was only obvious, visible, and heard by everyone except for the individuals that at the time mattered the most. As SCA hall of fame head coach Jim Roth signaled and yelled for a timeout, echoed by his assistants and players, the men wearing the pinstripes seemed to just ignore the obvious.
“At that point, everyone was waiting for the ref to signal a timeout, but it never came. For whatever reason, the refs weren’t really the fondest to our team,” said Wise. “I was happy with the way we played though. We got the job done and everyone did their part.”
As the clock continued to wind down with no whistle, the Tigers had no other choice than to get up to the line in confusion and run another play that resulted in an incomplete pass.
A justifiably heated Roth, who was irritated to say the least, approached the head referee as everyone was heading to the locker rooms. Instead of the officials apologizing for apparently suffering a quick stint of narcolepsy, the head honcho had the audacity to toss Roth from the game.
“That lit a fire up under us. Everyone was angry with the way the scenario transpired. We came out with a lot of energy after halftime,” Murphy said. “After our bad performance last week, we didn’t have any intentions of making this long trip and losing.”
In his 40th season as the head coach, it was the first time that Roth had ever been ejected. His defensive coordinator Andy Mills was given the reigns as the interim head coach for the second half.
Mills, who has been the defensive coordinator for all 40 years with Roth, wasn’t phased.
“Brandon Traugh stepped in and called the offense for us. He is usually up in the booth with a headset on. I called the defense like usual. The only real change was I was the spokesperson when it came to accepting or declining penalties when the officials asked our sideline. All the coaches just picked it up, and we did what we had to do. It was a group effort all around,” said Mills.
As Roth had to watch the second half from the other side of the fence, he had to be pleased with the way his group closed out the win.
“It fired us up after they threw out Coach Roth, but we had to keep our heads in the game by playing smart and not doing anything dumb. We were able to do that and pick up the win,” said Garcia.
The Warriors (8-1) will host Pittston next week as the Wyoming Valley Conference’s 4A champion Warriors look to get back on the winning side before the playoffs begin.
“We stayed competitive with Southern in the first half, but then they made the big plays in the second half. We just couldn’t seem to find a way to answer them,” said Wyoming Area head coach Randy Spencer. “Our success this season has come from establishing our running game, but they pretty much shut us down on the ground all night.”
Southern (8-1) returns home for their regular season finale against Shikellamy, and they are hoping that Canton can knock off Troy in a Northern Tier League showdown to get back into first place of the District 4 Class 2A standings.
“We approached this game as a playoff game. It sounds like Troy picked up a big win over Loyalsock, but they still have Canton next week which is a rivalry game. At this point, we just have to take care of business next week and see how the standings play out,” said Mills of the Tigers who won the PHAC Division 2 title earlier this month.
Southern Columbia 34, Wyoming Area 7
SCA — WYA
First Downs: 14 — 4
Rushes-yds: 35-157 — 24-54
Passing yds: 163 — 78
Total yds: 320 — 132
Passing (C-A-I): 12-18-0 — 3-11-1
Penalties: 13-121 — 4-30
Fumbles-lost: 2-0 — 1-0
Southern Col. (8-1): 7-7-14-6 — 34
Wyoming Area (8-1): 7-0-0-0 — 7
SCORING PLAYS
1st Quarter
S — Carter Madden 4 run (Isaac Carter kick), 4:06.
W — Josh Mruk 18 pass from Anthony DeLucca (Liam Burke kick), 0:57.
2nd Quarter
S — Louden Murphy 44 pass from Blake Wise (Carter kick), 10:32.
3rd Quarter
S — Murphy 7 run (Carter kick), 6:36.
S — Colden Bloom 19 interception return (Carter kick), 5:30.
4th Quarter
S — Garrett Garcia 1 run (no attempt), 3:16.
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Southern: Garrett Garcia 12-62, TD; Louden Murphy 12-56, TD; Carter Madden 10-41, TD; Team 1-(-2). Wyoming Area: Aaron Crossley 15-46; Anthony DeLucca 1-7; Michael Crane 2-4; Lidge Kellum 2-1; Trustin Johnson 2-1; Oliver Bolin 1-0; Team 1-(-5).
PASSING — Southern: Blake Wise 12-18-0, 163 yds, TD. Wyoming Area: Anthony DeLucca 3-10-1, 78 yds, TD; Aaron Crossley 0-1-0.
RECEIVING — Southern: Louden Murphy 4-62, TD; Jake Hoy 3-46; Kyle Christman 3-24; Carter Madden 2-31. Wyoming Area: Kevin Wiedl 2-60; Josh Mruk 1-18, TD.
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