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Middletown defense and Jose Lopez lead Raiders to a 21-14 win over Conwell-Egan @MtownRaiders @cecfootball

Tagged under: District 12, District 3, News

| November 24, 2018

Middletown’s Defense made plays when needed, coming up big in the end

 

Trailing 21-14 with just over two minutes remaining in their season, the Eagles had the ball at their own 16 yard line. Coming out cooler than the night air, Conwell Egan qb Alex Goldsby surgically moved the Eagles to the Middletown 31 yard line, but with 1:10 left the snap from center ended up on the ground and under Raider linebacker Gage Radabaugh. “We made one more play than they did” said Middletown head coach Brett Myers. But this game wasn’t decided on just one play, it was decided on many plays. BIG ones. And most of them came from senior running back Jose Lopez. For the night, Lopez ran the ball 27 times for 266 yards and scored all three touchdowns for the Raiders.

Lopez lines up behind Ash just before his 47 yard td run

“This one stings, it’s going to sting for a while” shared Eagles Head Coach Jack Techtmann. “They were better tonight. We made too many mistakes in the first half and credit to their defense, they made some stops”. The Raider defense stopped the Eagles on downs four times in the first half, and forced 1 punt to go along with two stops on downs in the second half. Middletown opened the scoring on their second possession. Pinned at their own 13, Lopez shot straight up the right side and outran everyone for the one play drive. The PAT made it 7-0 with 1:32 left in the first quarter.

Penalties hurt the Eagles on their next drive, but it was the Raider defense that again came up big, giving their offense the ball at the 22. Sam Ash found Lamar Ventura for a quick 10 yards, then it was Lopez again showing off his speed, sprinting 46 yards to break the game open for the Raiders who went into the break leading 14-0. “We just couldn’t keep drives going, and they did a good job bottling up (Patrick) Garwo, but Dajuan Harris stepped up for us.

Conwell-Egan came out in the second half ready to play. When Middletown fumbled on their first series of the second half after getting inside the 5, Harris made his presence known. On a fullback dive, the sophomore went straight up the gut and straight down the middle of the field for an 87 yard td to make it 14-7. One their next series, however, the Eagles once again put the ball on the ground inside their own twenty. Two plays later Lopez got his third of the night from six yards out give Middletown what seemed like a comfy 21-7 lead with 1:53 left in the third quarter.

Then early in the fourth quarter a key moment happened with the snap from center to the Middletown punter never made it to it’s destination, giving the ball back to Conwell-Egan with  8 minutes on the clock. Harris, who finished the game with a very respectable 181 yards and 2 scores, shot up the middle again from 22 yards out to close the gap to 7.

 

“I’m very proud of my guys right now, they never gave up” said Techtmann of his Eagles who had nearly 350 yards of offense. The Eagles had two more tries to tie the game, once coming of an interception of Ash, and the last the final drive that ended with the fumble.

Conwell-Egan finished their season 13-1.  Middletown will play in next week’s semifinal round to meet either Scranton Prep or Montoursville. That quarterfinal is slated for 1 p.m. Saturday at Dunmore High School.

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