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North Schuylkill Rolls To A Victory Over Tamaqua Thursday Night.

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News, pfn

| September 15, 2023

North Schuylkill Spartans jumped out to a 31 point lead on Tamaqua Thursday night en route to a 38-15 win.

TAMAQUA- The North Schuylkill Spartans are on a mission! Two weeks ago a disappointing 18-17 loss to rival Blue Mountain was a stinging blow to Coach Wally Hall’s squad, but then a shutout win over Pine Grove last week 48-0. In a Thursday night football contest on the road at Tamaqua, the Spartans marched to a 31-0 and then managed to hold off a late Blue Raiders run in a convincing 38-15 Schuylkill/Colonial League contest.

Sophomore quarterback Caden Mengel threw for two touchdowns to WR Joey Flail Jaxson Chowansky ran for two touchdowns and Ricky Halford added a score to secure the win.

North Schuylkill received the opening kickoff and drove inside the Tamaqua 20 but a fourth down stop turned the ball over to the Blue Raiders, but after getting a first down, they were forced to punt the ball back to the Spartans. This time they were sure to get points on the board as Chowansky packed it in for a one yard score with 1:16 left in the opening quarter. Gavin Mentzer added one of his five point-after-touchdown conversions and a 7-0 lead.

The Spartan defense then shut down Tamaqua’s next possession. Using their signature hyper-mode offense, getting off a play roughly every seven seconds, Mengel hit Flail with a perfect pass along the sidelines, where Flail made a diving catch for a 14-0 lead with 10:51 left till half.

After forcing a turnover at their own 33, the Spartans wasted little time moving downfield a 47 yard pass play from Mengel to Flail moved the ball to the Tamaqua eight, but a penalty set them back and from the 18 they could not sustain the drive, so on fourth down Mentzer connected on a 35 yard field goal to make it 17-0 at the 7:19 mark of the second quarter.

Chowansky scored again from 12 yards out with just 53 seconds left before half to make it 24-0 as the teams headed for the locker room. The drive covered six plays and 69 yards.

The Spartans flirted with the opportunity to possibly putting the game into a running clock mode after a sensational 35 yard run by Ricky Halford an d another Mentzer PAT made it 31-0 with 8:18 still left in the third quarter. The ball came loose as Halford neared the goal line but the official said he got the end zone before dropping the ball.

Tamaqua took advantage of back-to-back turnovers by the Spartans. The first is when on a punt Metzner could not find the handle and the Blue Raiders took over inside the Spartan 20. Quarterback Luke Kane completed a pass to Brady MCabe in the flat and he outran the defenders for a nine yard score and a 31-7 score.

The next Spartan drive also resulted in a fumble near their own 30. This time Kane capped off the drive from 12 yards out to make it 31-15 with 9:35 left in the game. But that would be as close as they would get. They would convert the two-point conversion to make it a two score game.

The next time the Spartans took the ball on offense it culminated with a 30 yard pass from Mengel to Flail with just over seven minutes left to make it 38-15. Neither team could muster any more points as the game ended.

Here is what North Schuylkill coach Wally Hall had to say after the game.

North Schuylkill (3-1) will face Northern Lehigh next Friday at home. Northern Lehigh (1-2) will at Pine Grove Friday. Tamaqua (0-4) will try to get in to the win column next week at Salisbury Twp (0-3). The Falcons are at Notre Dame Green Pond Friday.

Follow PA Football News on Twitter @PaFootballNews

 
 
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