Fairview Knocks Off Seneca 19-7, Snaps 4-Game Skid

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Shane Lux | September 26, 2025

Erie – Fairview limited Seneca to 139 yards of offense as the Tigers got back into the win column for the first time since Week 1.

For the Tigers, it was a challenging four weeks following a series of injuries, including a period where they were forced to use their fourth-string quarterback.

During their 4-game slide, Fairview was outscored by 139 points, dropping three of the games by the mercy rule.

“It’s been the longest month in my career, with the injuries that mounted up,” said Fairview head coach Mark Soboleski. “It was like, we were a mass unit, and week after week we were losing two and three, and we finally got healed up a little bit. This week, we got some guys back, and I’m really proud of the way the kids executed tonight.”

But as the saying goes, tough times don’t last; tough people do. Fairview held together as a team and used a complete effort to down the Bobcats.

Thursday night was the Tigers’ night, as they welcomed a few players back to health. However, things didn’t start well, following a punt and a 46-yard touchdown run by Zach Moats.

“They run a really challenging option to defend, and they’re gonna break some,” Soboleski said. “I wasn’t too worried, but I was a little worried that kid’s such a good back, and their quarterback is a fabulous kid, and he just runs hard. He never takes a loss, but we were able to drop him for a couple of losses tonight.”

However, the Tigers’ defense would hold Seneca to only 82 yards the rest of the contest.

Fairview pulled to within a point on Joey O’Reilly’s 12-yard touchdown run on the first snap of the second quarter, making the score 7-6.

O’Reilly rushed for 31 yards, all in the first half.

Despite outplaying the Bobcats for 24 minutes, Fairview settled for a 7-6 deficit heading into the locker room.

The Tigers had driven 53 yards in under four minutes. O’Reilly had ran seven yards to the 1-yard line in the closing seconds, where they were forced to line up quickly, with O’Reilly being stopped just short of the line to gain as time expired.

Earlier in the second stanza, Jeremiah Bennett had his pass intended for O’Reilly broken up in the end zone on a 4th-and-6 from the Bobcats’ 7-yard line.

“I mean, if we score there, one of them, you know, this game’s in hand,” said Soboleski. “You know, we’ve got to execute when you see the play that’s called. We got to do our assignments, and we missed a couple of guys on the goal line, and I thought we had a bad run there. We just didn’t run the play that we were supposed to run, but the kids were resilient. They went into the locker room. They were fine. We could have pouted about it, but they wrapped up and came back out, doing a great job.”

In the end, it didn’t matter, as Fairview took control of the contest in the second half.

Mason Smith-Holley intercepted Bobcats quarterback Rylan Harwood on the third play of the second half, setting up Fairview at the Seneca 47-yard line.

“Mason is a kid who broke his leg in a JV game as a young man, and it took him almost a year and a half to two years to fully get his confidence back, Soboleski said. “He is an outstanding corner. I think he’s a college-level corner. He realized how much we need him on the back end. He’s been doing an excellent job for us.”

Eight plays later, Elijah Pettit hauled in a 4-yard touchdown pass from Jeremiah Bennett, giving the Tigers a 12-7 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“In that situation, we had some isolation plays we wanted to run this week, and we saw it, and I was waiting to run at the right time, and I thought we ran it right at the right time, said Soboleski. “We laured their corner to sleep. I think a little bit with all the run plays in a row, and then threw it in.”

From there, it was the defense and the legs of tailback Caden Oldach that Fairview rode to victory.

Caden Oldach rushed for a game-high 206 yards on 26 carries, including 118 in the second half.

“It’s amazing, we couldn’t have done it without the line today,” Oldach said. “I was getting emotional during the game because we came out strong here tonight. I couldn’t have done it without my lime. It’s all them.”

Seneca’s best chance to take the lead when trailing 12-7 came early in the fourth quarter when they drove from their 24-yard line to the Tigers’ 18, where they faced a 4th-and-3.

Tailback Zach Moats could only gain a yard, turning it over on downs with 6:53 to play, where Fairview drove 83 yards in seven plays, all runs by Oldach to close the gams.

Moats led the Bobcats with 87 yards on 15 carries.

Oldach’s 31-yard touchdown run with 1:36 to play put the final nail in the coffin.

Fairview will now look to keep its momentum going when it hosts Fort LeBoeuf next week. Seneca will look to bounce back when they travel to Eisenhower.

Game Highlights

Fairview 19 Seneca 7

Score by Quarters

Fairview – 0 6 6 7 – 19

Seneca – 7 0 0 0 – 7

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

S – Zach Moats 46 yd run, (Cameron Beebe pat), 8:10 – 4-57

Second Quarter

F – Joey O’Reilly 12 yd run, (kick blocked), 11:54 – 8-43

Third Quarter

F – Elijah Pettit 4 yd pass from Jeremiah Bennett, (pass failed), 6:21 – 8-47

Fourth Quarter

F – Caden Oldach 31 yd run, (Daniel Lindenberger pat), 1:36 – 7-83

Individual Stats

Rushing: F – O’Reilly 9-31, Caden Oldach 26-206, Jeremiah Bennett 6-17, Team 1-0. Totals: 42-254. S – Moats 15-87, Rylan Harwood 11-2, Edan Lucas 3-4, Dominic Buscemi 1-0. Totals: 30-93.

Receiving: Javis Nesbitt 1-9, Langston Pustelak-Heynes 1-6, Pettit 1-4, O’Reilly 1-18. S – Buscemi 2-18, Donavon Huzinec 1-28.

Passing: F – Bennett 4-for-7, 37 yards, 1 TD. S – Harwood 3-for-8, 46 yards, 1 INT.

Interceptions: F – Mason Smith-Holley.

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