Big Second Half by Ellwood City Overwhelms New Brighton
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Phil Myers | September 28, 2024
On a rainy night at Ellwood City’s Helling Stadium, the home team only led New Brighton 7-0 at halftime. In fact, New Brighton probably had a slight edge in controlling the play despite turning the ball over three times. But Ellwood City’s Wolverines were ferocious in the second half, scoring 26 more points to pull away from New Brighton on homecoming night and win 33-0.
“We woke up in the second half and came out and played a physical football game and I thought we controlled both sides of the ball,” stated Ellwood City’s head coach, Dan Bradley.
The Wolverine defense pretty much shut down the New Brighton offense especially in the second half to pitch their first shutout of the year. Perry Dubois, the 350-pound Wolverine nose tackle, had himself quite a game. Besides being in on a bunch of tackles, he intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble by stripping the ball out of a runner’s hand. “He’s a big boy, but he’s a tremendous athlete,” said Bradley, “he made some big plays for us tonight.”
After New Brighton punted on the opening drive of the game, Ellwood City went 67 yards in just 5 plays to score what would be the only touchdown of the first half. The TD came when Dailonn Currie made a nice fingertip catch in the end zone of Chris Smiley’s pass to complete a 21-yard scoring play.
For the rest of the half, no one could mount much offense, although the New Brighton Lions had a couple of positive drives snuffed out by turnovers. Ellwood City threatened to score a couple of times, but New Brighton’s defense turned them away.
The third quarter saw Ellwood being forced to punt on the opening possession, but a muffed catch gave the ball back to the Wolverines at the Lion 39. On the next play Smiley connected with Currie again and Ellwood City led 14-0 before a minute was gone.
Elijah Palmer-McCane scored the first of his three touchdowns with a little over a minute left in the third when he bolted in from the 3-yard line to increase Ellwood City’s lead to 21-0. That score completed a 66-yard drive that was extended when the Wolverines converted a fourth and long.
Palmer-McCane would finish the night with 185 yards on 31 carries. His last two touchdowns occurred in the fourth quarter on runs of 9 yards and 15 yards.
Elijah Palmer-McCane with his 2nd TD and Ellwood City now leads New Brighton 27-0. @PaFootballNews @EC_Wolverines @E_PM05 pic.twitter.com/lD4LWMQ0yL
— Phil Myers Sr. (@Protime_PFN) September 28, 2024
Game Notes: Ellwood City outgained New Brighton 330 yards to 151. The Wolverines had 239 yards rushing, the Lions had 118. Both teams combined to complete only 10 passes in 52 attempts. Caitlin Kreitzer is Ellwood’s kicker and has now made 15 of 19 PATs for the year. She also kicks off for the Wolverines. A referee was hurt and had to leave the game, as was a New Brighton player.
Ellwood City, ranked #10 in the state in Class 2A, upped their record to 5-0. They will travel to Western Beaver next Saturday afternoon for a big game with the 5-1 Beavers. New Brighton falls to 3-3 for the year. They will visit 3-2 Mohawk next Friday night.
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