Stream Pennsylvania High School Football on the NFHS Network
 
 

Midd-West Pulls Off the Road Upset Over Central Columbia 27-7

Tagged under: District 4, Gameday Hub, News, pfn

| August 23, 2025

SOUTH CENTRE TOWNSHIP – It’s that time of year once again ladies and gentlemen, football is back. Tonight’s contest brought us to Blue Jay Stadium, the home of the Central Columbia Blue Jays, who would welcome in the Midd-West Mustangs for the first time since 2021. Coming into tonight, Midd-West hadn’t won two consecutive games since the 2018 season where they beat Vincentian Academy and Tunkhannock in back to back weeks. However, that all changed tonight. After ending a 27 game losing streak in the final week of last season with a 27-13 road win over Holy Redeemer, Midd-West (1-0) rode a stellar performance from senior running back Kyle Shupp to a 27-7 upset victory over Central Columbia (0-1).

Coming into the game, the focus was on Central Columbia as they were entering the game with first year head coach Ky Seesholtz. Right from the opening kickoff, the Blue Jays’ offense couldn’t seem to find their rhythm. Other than an occasional chunk play here and there, the offense majority of the time seemed stalled. This was prevalent on the game’s opening drive. After the first two plays of the game resulted in just two total yards, senior quarterback Josiah Hosler launched a dart to Elijah Geedy who made the catch at the Blue Jay 49 yard line, until he had the ball knocked out of his hands and recovered by the Midd-West defense.

Both sides exchanged punts before we saw the game’s first action. On Midd-West’s second drive of the game, Kyle Shupp took the handoff from the Mustangs’ 46 yard line and ran 54 yards all the way to the endzone, unfortunately a holding penalty took the points right back off the scoreboard. However it didn’t take much longer to see the game’s true first points as just five plays later, Shupp took the handoff from the Blue Jays 17 yard line all the way to the endzone, putting Midd-West ahead early 7-0.

Central Columbia’s next drive would take us all the way into the second quarter of play. They entered the second quarter with a 4th & 4 from Midd-West’s 22 yard line, the offense remained on the field but Josiah Hosler’s pass fell to the ground incomplete, leading to a turnover on downs. The Mustangs didn’t do much on offense the next drive, in fact after Midd-West punted the ball away and the penalty was enforced on the return, Central Columbia was set right back up at Midd-West’s 28 yard line. Central Columbia unfortunately once again couldn’t capitalize on the good field position, in fact on this drive, the Blue Jays didn’t gain a single yard on offense. Midd-West took back over and just five plays later they found themselves back in the endzone with a 5 yard touchdown run by Shupp once again, his second of the half. This score put Midd-West up 14-0 with 7:47 left in the second quarter.

With Midd-West starting to pull away, Central Columbia needed to put something together on offense, and on their next drive that’s exactly what they did. The Blue Jays put together a 7 play drive that was capped off by a 46 yard touchdown pass to Elijah Geedy. On the very next drive it really started to seem like momentum was shifting in the Blue Jays’ favor. A fumbled snap, followed by a sack by senior Clayton Whitenight led to a very long third down for the Mustangs where they attempted to do a little hook and ladder to try and convert. However, quarterback Brady Janovich couldn’t handle the ball cleanly and it ended up on the ground and recovered by Central’s Connor Litchfield.

With the crowd fired up and the momentum in their favor, it seemed like Central had gotten right back in the game. On their following drive, the Blue Jays made it all the way down to the Midd-West 3 yard line, before a tackle for loss and a sack moved them back to the 12 yard line. With just 17 seconds left in the half and no timeouts remaining, Hosler had no choice but to throw it to the endzone and his pass ended up being intercepted by Landon Hartman. After the interception, Midd-West kneeled out the remaining seconds of the half and took their 14-7 lead into the locker room.

“We’re excited man, it’s all excitement. We’re ready to finish the second half” coach Janovich said at halftime. “The plan (in the second half) is the same, we rep everything until they get tired of it. We are who we are.” This statement was very true in the second half, as for Midd-West it was more of the same and that was hand the ball to Kyle Shupp and let him do the rest. Their opening drive of the second half featured 5 more carries for 33 more yards, and the 9 play drive was eventually capped off by a touchdown on a quarterback sneak which put Midd-West ahead 21-7 with 8:28 left in the third quarter.

On the defensive side, it seemed like the interception at the end of the half was exactly what Midd-West needed to demoralize the Blue Jay offense. In the entire second half, Central Columbia didn’t make it back into Midd-West territory once. No matter what the Jays tried, they just could not find their rhythm whether it was dropped passes, running into their own lineman, or some other form of a broken play, they couldn’t put full drives together. Mid way through the fourth quarter, the Blue Jays found themselves staring at a 4th and 10. Their quarterback Hosler took off scrambling to the left and fought all the way to the line to gain and it seemed like he had gotten enough, but the referees marked him just short. After that Midd-West went to work once more and drove right back down the field no problem, finishing off the drive with a 20 yard touchdown run by Landon Hartman.

Even after the blocked extra point the Blue Jays now didn’t stand a chance, and on the next drive, four straight incomplete passes by Hosler would be the last we saw out of the Central Columbia offense for the night. After the final kneeldowns and the clock had hit all zeroes, Midd-West pulled off the victory with the final score being 27-7. The leader for that Midd-West offense being none other than senior running back Kyle Shupp who finished the night with 20 carries for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Midd-West (1-0) will be hoping to carry this momentum into next week where they will be facing Hamburg (0-1) on the road who is coming off a 35-6 loss. Central Columbia (0-1) will be looking to rebound next week as they host Mount Carmel (0-1) who is also looking to rebound after getting crushed by North Schuylkill 62-20.

Follow PA Football News on Twitter @PaFootballNews

 
 
PA Football News Scoreboard presented by NFHS Network
 
GoRout
 
Showcase by Circle W Sports
 
Football Legends board game
 
 
x