BEA Makes a Statement with Win Over Richland for the D-6 Class AA Crown

Tagged under: District 6, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs

Phil Myers | November 19, 2023

Bald Eagle Area played a near flawless football game and made a statement as they rolled to a 49-0 victory over the Richland Rams Saturday night at Mansion Park in Altoona.  The win gives them the District Six Class 2A title.  “Our kids performed, they executed, and I’m really proud of them,” stated Jesse Nagle, BEA’s head coach.

Photo by Leo Murray

Cameron Dubbs scored the first four touchdowns for the Bald Eagles as they jumped all over Richland in the first half to take a 35-0 lead into the intermission.  The fifth TD happened with 18 seconds left before the half when Carson Nagle hit Camron Watkins for a 3-yard score on 4^th down.  That touchdown invoked the Mercy Rule for the entire second half.

Dubbs #8 scoring one of his four touchdowns. Photo by Leo Murray.

BEA outgained the Rams 280 to 49 in the first and second quarters.  Bald Eagle had nine first downs to Richland’s one in the opening half.  And the smothering defense not only limited a good Ram offense to a total of 49 yards, they had 3 interceptions to boot.  The third one Nick Wible ran back 55 yards for a touchdown, but it was called back due to a penalty.  BEA added a fourth INT in the second half.

“We knew they had a young quarterback, so defensively we threw a lot of different coverages at him,” said Coach Nagle, “we wanted to confuse him and I think we did a good job of that.  We felt we had an advantage there.”

Richland (in white) had nowhere to run as BEA just smothered ball carriers. Photo by Leo Murray.

The onslaught continued in the second half as BEA scored two more times and had the ball inside Richland’s ten when the game ended.  “Offensively, we have a good line, we got good backs, and we have a good quarterback,” commented Coach Nagle, “we know if we stop them defensively, we have a good chance of scoring points.”

Kollin Cunningham #1 is off to the races after he intercepted a Richland pass. He returned his pick 27 yards to the Richland 16. Photo by Leo Murray.

Bald Eagle held Richland to 138 yards of offense and no real scoring opportunities.  They also intercepted a total of four Ram passes.  Meanwhile, the Eagles chalked up 432 yards of offense scoring on seven of their first nine possessions.  Carson Nagle threw for 270 yards and 2 touchdowns.  Dubbs ran for 75 yards in addition to scoring those four touchdowns.

The reward for BEA is a meeting with Southern Columbia next week.  Both teams are 12-1 on the year.  Southern is the six-time defending state AA champs.  Coach Nagle had this to say about playing Coach Jim Roth and his Southern Columbia Tigers, “It’s a great opportunity.  They’re the kings and you always want to dethrone the kings sometime.  We know it’s going to be a very tall task.  So, we’re going to give everything we got.  We’re (the coaching staff) going to do everything we can to make sure we give our kids the best opportunity to win.”

Richland finishes the season 11-2.  The Rams played without their all-star running back Evan McCracken.

Score by Quarters:

Richland – 0 0 0 0 – 0

BEA – 14 21 14 0 – 35

Scoring Summary:

First Quarter:

BEA – Cameron Dubbs 6-yard run, (Kaden Burns PAT), 8:51

BEA – Dubbs 7-yard run, (Kaden Burns PAT), 4:44

Second Quarter:

BEA – Dubbs 1-yard run, (Kaden Burns PAT), 11:53

BEA – Dubbs 7-yard run, (Kaden Burns PAT), 9:46

BEA – Camron Watkins 3-yard pass from Carson Nagle, (Kaden Burns PAT), 0:18

Third Quarter:

BEA – Gavin Burns 71-yard pass from Nagle, (Kaden Burns PAT), 8:35

BEA – Nick Wible 1-yard run, (Kaden Burns PAT), 2:13

Fourth Quarter:

No Scoring

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