Bellefonte Upsets Central In Exciting Opener

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Baron Dionis | August 23, 2024

The Bellefonte Red Raiders travelled to Roaring Spring to take on the defending Laurel Highlands champions in the Central Dragons. After losing to the Dragons in 2023 49-0, the Red Raiders came Friday night looking for revenge and they did just that with a thrilling 18-7 victory.

Liam Halterman, Bellefontes quarterback, led the team to a win this evening with two rushing touchdowns, 105 rushing yards, and 50 passing yards. These numbers could not have been tallied without the offensive line tonight, according to Liam.

Liam stated, “The offensive line tonight was amazing, just giving me all that time, making holes for me to run through. It’s just insane how much we worked from last year losing 49-0 to this year winning. I mean the line put in so much work and it shows out on the field.”

Head Coach Tony Confer calls Liam “a gamer” and he is very impressed with how “he was able to make things work tonight.” The overall expectations for tonight were back and forth for Coach Confer after having 14 penalties in the first half, but he was also extremely impressed with how the team showed out against a quality program.

Coach Confer said, “I would say our expectations of getting the win is there, but our expectations as coaches as far as we need to play and finish things and clean things up. That needs improvement.”

The Red Raider defense was able to get to Central’s standout quarterback Eli Muthler tonight as they sacked him four times and intercepted him twice. The defensive backs to get the turnovers were Aden and Ashten Howell, two brothers on the team. Seeing siblings both get an interception in the same game was very cool to see.

Coach Confer said, “It’s very cool for them, they are great kids and they are very deserving to do that together.”

Bellefonte believes they will need to clean some things up for Chestnut Ridge next week.

Central though, coming off a 12-1 2023 season, struggled a lot in this game with pass protection, turnovers, and moving the ball down the field. Braydon Beach and Thaide Mickel both ripped off a few gains of 10+ yards, but the Dragons could not consistently put drives together. Eli Muthler scored the Dragons lone touchdown, running it in from a yard out.

Coach Albright said, “Our offensive line didn’t do very well with pass protection. We were doing zone blocking most of the time and letting linebackers run free through the middle.”

The defense on the other hand played well, despite giving up 18 points. Each touchdown that was allowed was actually on given to Bellefonte from a dropped punt recovered by the Red Raiders and an interception, but aside from those two drives, Centrals defense played very well.

“Our defense was phenomenal. We are very undersized and our linebackers (Lukas Black, Braydon Beach, and Colton Harbaugh) played unbelievable and were making about every play on defense. That’s what we expect our linebackers to do, but they need to get support from up front and from our defensive backs.”

Although the line didn’t do well as a whole, but Coach Albright believes that freshmen Truitt Barnes and Jett Butler both stepped up and did a good job for their first game.

Jay Hoenstine made a four catches for 44 yards and Beach had 46 rushing yards on five carries.

Central looks to bounce back on the road next week against Somerset.

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