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Bellefonte overcomes mistakes, hands Clearfield it’s first loss of the season. @RollOnRaiders @clearfieldbison

Tagged under: Centre County Report, District 6, Gameday Hub, News

| September 28, 2019

 

CJ Funk talks about his 85 yard run after the game

Having just took the lead after an electrifying 85 yard touchdown run by CJ funk, and an interception by Mason Gray to give Bellefonte the ball at their 39, the red Raiders committed two straight penalties, The second of which negated A 54 yard flea flicker pass from Ethan Rossman to Funk. Unfortunately once again flags flew and Bellefonte was facing second down and 4 yards to go from there on 31. Three plays later Rossman found Mason Grey over the middle for the clinching score. Bellefonte takes over the lead in the Mountain League with a 28-19 win over state ranked Clearfield. “Well last week we were first down to 38 so we’ve been there before. The kids are resilient and I really don’t think they care a whole lot about circumstances” said Manning of the crazy sequence.

This game was a battle the entire stretch. Clearfield started the game by driving to the Bison 34, but Jake Lezzer dropped a sure TD pass and the drive stalled.  With just three minutes and 40 seconds left in the opening quarter, Rossman and Grey hooked up for their first touchdown of the night, a 33 yard pass straight down the middle of the Bison backfield. On the extra point play the snap is fumbled Jaylin M or picked up the ball tossed it into a crowd the ball was tipped and Isaiah Nadal ski came down with the two point catch to put Belfont up 8-0.

It was a first half that saw the scoring go back-and-forth, and dropped passes plagued the Bison all night.  “For sure we made some mistakes tonight” said Clearifields head coach Tim Janocko. “We gave away too much, dropped some balls and had some blown coverages that led to big plays for them”. On the very next drive the Bison went 85 yards in 15 plays. Brett Zattoni finished the drive with a 2 yard touchdown run, but the point after attempt failed and with 10:02 left in the second quarter the Raiders had an 8 to 6 lead. On the very next play Bellefonte got a 47 yard run that put the ball on the Clearfield 20. Ryan Lehman Hauled in Rossmans second of three touchdown passes and Bellefonte extended their lead to 15 to 6. A key moment in the first half came after Logan Firanski scored on a 3 yard touchdown run. On the second play of the ensuing drive the Raiders running back coughed up the ball and Clearfield recovered. With just 10 seconds left in the half Oliver Billotte found Nick Domico to put Clearfield ahead 19-15 at the half.

 

The turning point in the game came after the teams exchanged punts to start the second quarter. With the Raiders backed up on their own 15 after a penalty on the punt return, CJ Funk followed his linemen to the left, showed patience, then burst through a hole and sprinted 85 yards down the sidelines. “CJ’s run was awesome but when you look at the film you’re going to see that there were four linemen that held their blocks for 6-7 seconds and they did a fantastic job on that play” said Bellefonte head coach Shannon Manning.

That was one of two game changing moments for us. We had a huge defensive stand there in the fourth quarter to stop them. Our defense has been huge and Coach Bumgardner has done an awesome job. From where we were and we go on to where we are in week six, the kids have worked really hard and just done a fantastic job”.

Funk finished the night 75 yards shy of they 1000 yard mark, rushing for 128 yards.

5-1 Clearfield will look to rebound against Tyrone while Bellefonte has another big game with the 5-1 Rams of Penns Valley heading to Rogers Stadium.

Follow PA Football News on Twitter @PaFootballNews

 
 
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