Much Needed Win For SCA

Tagged under: District 4, Gameday Hub, News

Dave Fegley | October 1, 2022

Tigers take down Warriors 34-16

The cliché ‘must win’ gets thrown around a lot in sports. Rarely if ever is it used at Southern Columbia in their football program. During Jim Roth’s 39-year tenure as the head coach of the Tigers, fans can count on one hand without raising a finger for how many times the situation has occurred before Friday in a regular season game.

However, after finishing the first half of the regular season with two losses, and losing two of their stars in the process, the Tigers absolutely needed to beat Montoursville. With junior Garrett Garcia in a knee brace after his ACL surgery, and senior Wes Barnes in a sling as he awaits an MRI on his elbow on Tuesday, the Tigers were able to win at home 34-16.

“This was a game we absolutely needed to win. We still gave up some big plays on defense which is frustrating, and some bad penalties that cost us on offense but in the end, I am happy with the way they guys closed out the game in the fourth quarter,” said Roth.

With less than two minutes to go in the third quarter, most of the individuals on Southern’s sideline were probably thinking déjà vu all over again. To their credit, the Tigers were able to dig deep.

Montoursville senior Matt Conklin scored on a run from 46 yards out to give the Warriors the lead at 16-14 with 1:45 left in the third. From that point, the Tigers ripped off the final 20 points to give the Warriors their first divisional loss of the season.

“We were out of position at times in the first half and third quarter defensively,” said Tiger leading tackler Dominic Fetterolf. “When we all started to do our job collectively, we showed that we are capable of making stops when we need to.”

The Tigers nearly gave the ball back to Montoursville on the following possession after the Warriors took their only lead of the game. On the first play, Carter Madden fumbled as he was taking a handoff from Blake Wise. With two Warriors jumping for the ball ahead of Madden, the SCA junior was somehow able to recover the fumble.

If not for the effort by Madden, Montoursville would have gained possession inside of the red zone with all of the momentum to try and go up by two scores.

“I give everything that I have in me on every play. After realizing that I didn’t tuck the ball away, I knew it was my job to recover the fumble. I wasn’t going to let that mistake cost us. This was a big win for us to get back on track,” Madden said.

Two plays later, Wise found Braeden Wisloski open out of the backfield. Wisloski, who finished with 127 rushing yards and 96 receiving yards, hauled in the pass around midfield and was able to outrun the secondary down Southern’s sideline for an 85-yard TD.

“I saw the guy was playing a little deep, so I changed my route. It was the third time we ran that same play in the game, so I was happy that it finally worked for us,” said Wisloski.

With a 21-16 lead, the Tigers came up with a three-and-out stop on defense. On the punt attempt from inside the 10, Tyler Arnold was able to break through and block the punt allowing Colden Bloom to scoop up the ball and score from two yards out.

“Earlier in the game I hurt my arm pretty band and I truly didn’t think I was coming back in. What kept me going was knowing it was my dad’s birthday, so I wanted to keep going and play for him,” said Arnold of the play that gave the Tigers a two-possession lead.

Jack Biermaas, who started at fullback in place of the injured Barnes, scored the final touchdown from a yard out.

In the first half, Wisloski put Southern in front 7-0 on a 43-yard run. The score remained that way until Montoursville tied it up with 5:00 to go in the half when Marco Pulizzi caught a 69-yard pass from Bryce Eberhart.

After a nice kickoff return deep into Warrior territory by Louden Murphy, Madden scored from 15 yards out just seconds later to give the Tigers a 14-7 lead. Montoursville’s Wyatt Fry kicked a 34-yard field goal as time expired in the first half to make the score 14-10 at the break.

Things don’t get any easier for Montoursville (4-2). They will head home to take on an undefeated Danville Ironmen squad that beat SCA last week 49-14.

Pulizzi, who had a big game receiving, went down late in the third quarter with what looked to be a knee injury. He will go for testing in the coming days to find out the severity of the injury.

The Tigers will certainly take the win, but they still have to fix some uncharacteristic mistakes. Southern (4-2) will travel to Central Columbia next week.

“We had been getting killed by the big plays, but in the second half we were able to turn things around and make some big plays. Hopefully this gives us some momentum moving forward,” said Roth.

Southern Columbia 34, Montoursville 16

SCA — MTV

First Downs: 12 — 14

Rushes-yds: 32-216 — 37-163

Passing yds: 100 — 179

Total yds: 316 — 342

Passing (C-A-I): 4-7-0 — 11-16-1

Penalties: 8-83 — 5-57

Fumbles-lost: 2-1 — 3-0

Montoursville (4-2) 0-10-6-0 — 16

Southern Col. (4-2) 7-7-7-13 — 34

SCORING CHART

First quarter

S — Braeden Wisloski 43 run (Isaac Carter kick), 7:00.

Second quarter

M — Marco Pulizzi 69 pass from Bryce Eberhart (Wyatt Fry kick), 5:00.

S — Carter Madden 15 run (Carter kick), 4:31.

M — Fry 34 field goal, 0:00.

Third quarter

M — Matt Conklin 46 run (extra point missed), 1:45.

S —Wisloski 85 pass from Blake Wise (Carter kick), 0:55.

Fourth quarter

S — Colden Bloom 2 fumble recovery (Carter kick), 11:13.

S — Jack Beirmaas 1 run (no attempt), 2:31.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING —

Southern: Braeden Wisloski 9-127, TD; Carter Madden 6-47, TD; Jack Beirmaas 11-28, TD; Louden Murphy 6-14.

Montoursville: Matt Conklin 25-139, TD; Bryce Eberhart 5-13; Marco Pulizzi 3-11; Christian Banks 3-2; Tristen Stelene 1-(-2).

PASSING —

Southern: Blake Wise 4-7-0, 100 yds, TD.

Montoursville: Bryce Eberhart 11-16-1, 179 yds, TD.

RECEIVING —

Southern: Braeden Wisloski 2-96, TD; Jake Toczylousky 1-8; Carter Madden 1-(-4).

Montoursville: Marco Pulizzi 6-149, TD; Alex Fogleman 2-21; Matt Conklin 2-5; Dylan Keyte 1-4.

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