‘Gutsy’ performance from Clearfield gives Janocko 300th career win (gallery included
Tagged under: Centre County Report, District 6, Gameday Hub, News
Brendan Ricciardi | September 3, 2022
WINGATE, Pa – In a game that didn’t have too much offense to speak of the Clearfield Bisons did just enough to get by, as they took down the Bald Eagle Area Eagles by a score of 7-3 at Alumni Stadium to give Tim Janocko his 300th career win as a Head Coach.
After both offenses went three and out on the first drive, Bald Eagle got the ball back with great starting field position at the Clearfield 49-yard line. Eagles QB Carson Nagle connected on a huge third-down conversion to WR Camron Watkins, but Bald Eagle would ultimately have to settle for a field goal from Kaden Burns.
Eagles Head Coach Jesse Nagle called a surprise onside kick following the field goal, but it was recovered by Clearfield.
That 3-0 lead would hold all the way until the fourth quarter due to a combination of excellent defense, but also offenses that failed to execute on great field position.
The biggest play of this game came late in the third quarter when a bad snap from Bald Eagle was recovered by the Clearfield defense in Bald Eagle territory. After working their way down the field, Brady Collins ran for a six-yard touchdown on first and goal for the only touchdown of the evening to put the Bisons up 7-3.
The teams traded three and outs throughout the fourth quarter, and Bald Eagle got the ball back for one last two-minute drill with a chance to win.
With the game on the line, Bald Eagle QB Carson Nagle attempted to go for the sneak on fourth down, but the Clearfield defense held strong. The chains were required to come out on the field as it was too close to make a ruling, and the Bison faithful erupted in cheer when the chains revealed that Nagle was just short, and Clearfield was going to win this football game.
“I can’t say enough about our kids and our coaches,” Janocko said. “What a gutsy, gutsy game. We had to fight for everything. That’s a great football team over there. They’re going to win a lot of football games. They did a nice job, but we just kept fighting. It was just two great teams getting after each other.”
Winning game number 300 was going to mean the world to Tim Janocko no matter how it happened, but the dramatic finish was the icing on the cake.
“That even means more to be honest with you, it would be nice to have it be 45-0 but this actually means more,” Janocko said. “It was kind of neat because my family is here tonight, my son Andrew (QB Coach for the Chicago Bears) was able to make it, my daughter is here, my wife is here, my son in-law, and my granddaughter.”
For Clearfield, they improve to 1-0 in the Mountain League and 1-1 overall as they will have their home opener next Friday night in a non-conference matchup with DuBois. As for Bald Eagle, they fall to 0-1 in the Mountain League and 0-2 overall, and they’ll head to Bellefonte next Friday for a Centre County matchup.
After a win like that, Janocko believes that his team is going to keep that momentum going with them.
“It’s a huge uplift, you know it’s tough going on the road after we lost that tough one last week,” Janocko said. Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do, but our defense played their tails off. They just really went to the ball, they hit well, they blocked well, and we had a good scheme.”
Janocko currently sits at 20th on the all-time list of Head Coaching wins in the history of Pennsylvania High School Football, just one away from Bill Scott for 19th. Janocko could see himself rise to as high as 16th on the list this season, as he is now only seven games behind Tim Rimpfel.
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