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Protime’s Pigskin Parlance – 2024 Milestones, Record Breakers & Game Shakers – Edition 7

Tagged under: News, pfn, Protime Predictions

| October 9, 2024

https://www.twobirchwinery.com/

Protime’s weekly column will attempt to get readers up to date on current football facts, stats, and miscellaneous tidbits of information from across the entire state of Pennsylvania.  His crack staff of one will peruse some, but not all newspapers and other sources for hopefully what will be up to date scoop on the previous week’s games, records, and hitherto unknown factoids of the sort.

Trivia question of the week: Ray Wersching of the San Diego Chargers did this on November 21, 1976 against the Buffalo Bills and not a single person has done this since.  What did he do?

Program Wins Milestones

Moshannon Valley garnered their 400th program victory when the Black Knights beat Curwensville 27-0.  Congratulations to the Mo Valley Black Knight Football Nation.

Coaching Milestones

Congratulations goes out to Art Walker, Jr. of North Allegheny as he notched his 250th career win when his NA Tigers beat Mt. Lebo 28-21.  Walker is now 250-71 all-time for a .778 winning percentage.

Team Achievements

Mifflinburg may be the best 2-5 team in the state.  They’ve played a pretty tough schedule and lost two games by a single point and two more by one score.  Last week they beat Southern Columbia for their second win.  That was a big deal.  Ellwood City beat Western Beaver last Saturday and they are now 6-0 for the year.  That is the first time they’ve been 6-0 at the start of a season since 1986.  Clairton chalked up their 6th straight shutout.  The Bears’ defense has not given up a point yet this year.  The only points scored against them were points the offense gave up on a fumble return the first game of the year.

Steel Valley is coming on strong now that they are getting healthy.  Brothers Da’Ron and Donald Barksdale have combined for six touchdowns in each of the past two weeks.  Watch for Steel Valley to make noise come playoff time if they stay healthy.

Karns City and Schuylkill Haven both ran for over 500 yards as a team last week.  Karns City had 537, while Haven had 521.

Individual Achievements

Bethel Park’s quarterback, Tanner Pfeuffer, surpassed the 5,000 career passing yards mark.  Matt Bodnar, Notre Dame Green Pond, is the top passer in Pennsylvania.  Once again, he threw for over 400 yards.  This time it was 446 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Jase Ferguson of Central Clarion accounted for 8 touchdowns in their victory over Brockway.  He threw for six, rushed for one, and had a pick six on defense.  Braden Slater of Karns City and Aiden Bliss of Port Allegany both scored 6 TDs the same way, five rushing and the other on a long kickoff return.  Lakeland’s David Naniewicz also scored 6 touchdowns.

Trey Coury, Burrell’s big time running back, has to be in shape.  For the second week in a row he ran the ball over 50 times.  Two weeks ago, he had 54 totes for 252 yards.  Last week he only ran the pigskin 53 times.  He gained 266 yards.  That is 107 carries and 518 yards in just two weeks.

Defensively, Notre Dame Green Pond’s Christian Rivituso brought down 22 ball carriers.  But Noah Doi of Camp Hill topped that with 27 tackles.  Eddie Geisel of Forest Hills was the only other player with more than 20 tackles.  Geisel knocked down 21 ball carriers.

School Record Breakers

Logan Nawrocki, Schuylkill Valley, set two new career passing records.  He is now the all-time leader in passing yards and touchdown passes.  In the same game he set a third record when he broke the single game touchdown toss record with 5.  Justin Yescavage of Jim Thorpe is the school’s new career leader for receptions and yards receiving.  Muhlenberg’s Cameron Small set the program’s single game record with 346 yards passing.  QB Ryan Cortes and WR Drew Cook of South Allegheny both broke single season school records last week.  Cortes has now pitched the pigskin for 1,499 yards and Cook has chalked up 951 receiving yards.

Interesting Tidbits/State Offensive Leaders

Quarterbacks:

  1. Matt Bodnar, Notre Dame Green Pond – 2,615 yards passing.
  2. Trey Wingard, DuBois – 1,947 yards passing.
  3. Braylon Wagner, Redbank Valley – 1,937 yards passing.
  4. Isaac Zietz, General McLane – 1,936 yards passing.
  5. Torin ‘TD’ Evans, Susquehanna Township – 1,764 yards passing.

Wingard, Zietz, and Jase Ferguson (Central Clarion) all have 28 touchdown passes to lead the state.  Bodnar has 27, and Wagner and Stone Saunders (Bishop McDevitt) have thrown 24.

Wide Receivers:

  1. Luke Kreger, North Penn Mansfield – 985 receiving yards.
  2. Drew Cook, South Allegheny – 951 receiving yards.
  3. Hamilton Gates, Altoona – 846 receiving yards.
  4. Jacob Zietz, General McLane – 828 receiving yards.
  5. Zymir Reed, Greater Johnstown – 817 receiving yards.

Josh Smith of Mechanicsburg has grabbed 12 TD passes.  Zietz, Evan Snyder of Jersey Shore, Kian Krzyzanowski, Williams Valley, and Aiden Burgy of Quakertown have 11.

Running Backs:

  1. Brady Collins, Clearfield – 1,690 rushing yards.
  2. Niko Carestia, Schuylkill Haven – 1,571 rushing yards.
  3. Liam Taylor, Haverford – 1,539 rushing yards.
  4. Aiden Bliss, Port Allegany – 1,535 rushing yards.
  5. Braxtyn Brown, Columbia Montour Vo-Tech – 1,456 rushing yards.

Bliss leads everyone in the state with 30 rushing touchdowns and 34 overall.  Jayden Floyd of Leechburg and Lee Qualk of California have 22 rushing TDs.  Collins and Carestia have 21.

Games of the Week

In Protime’s opinion there were six, but one was above the rest and we’ll delve into that game last.  Seneca Valley took a 10-0 lead over Canon-McMillan in the first but the Big Macs scored 27 straight points and early in the third they led 27-10.  The Raiders of SV then chipped away at the deficit even though C-M added a field goal, and forged ahead with 5 minutes left in the game.  They then held on for the improbable comeback victory 31-30.

The Oxford Hornets beat the West Chester Vikings 21-14 in a very physical game that resulted in a few injuries apparently to both squads.  WC East tied the game at 14 in the 4th quarter.  The winning score by Oxford came with 24 seconds left on a 4th down sprint draw that the backup running back (Jalen McClain) had never run before.  The play covered 34 yards.  West Chester drove into Oxford territory but time ran out on them.

Three District 7 games had endings that involved two-point conversion attempts.  Two failed and one was made.  Northgate had the momentum scoring late to tie their game with South Side at 28 and send it into overtime.  They got the ball first and scored to go up 35-28.  But South Side scored and elected to go for the win.  They succeeded and won 36-35.  Waynesburg and Carlynton both scored in overtime with Waynesburg kicking the PAT to go up 27-26 and then stopping Carlynton’s two point try to win.  Washington and Keystone Oaks were involved in a real slugfest.  Wash High led 14-7 after one and scored on a 91-yard pass to go up 20-13.  The Little Prexies spoiled Keystone’s two-point attempt after a TD to stay in front 20-19, then scored again to increase the lead to 26-19.  With 3 minutes left KO scored and trailed by one again 26-25, but Washington foiled the second two-point try to win.

Coin Flip. St. Joes (in white). LaSalle (in blue).

Now for the game of the year, and to many one of the all-time best they’ve ever seen.  St. Joes Prep and LaSalle may be the two best teams in Pennsyvania and were ranked one and two respectively in class 6A.  The two duked it out in front of an estimated 15,00 people.  In the first half, the defenses reigned supreme and the half ended with neither school scoring.  The second half was a different story as LaSalle took leads of 7-0 and 14-7 only to have St. Joes tie the game each time.  The Prep had the ball at LaSalle’s 5-yard line with seconds to go and nixed the FG attempt.  The result was an interception by the Explorer defense to send the game into OT.  The teams traded scores through the first three overtimes, each with a TD and two FGs.  The Hawks scored to go ahead 34-27 in the 4th OT, but LaSalle scored and opted for two instead of probably sending it into a 5th OT.  On a broken play, athlete/wide receiver Joey O’Brien improvised and flicked a pass into the end zone that was tipped but caught for the winning points.  LaSalle is the new #1 and Protime will tell you everyone in Philly is looking forward to the rematch in the playoffs in November!

Answer to trivia question: He successfully made a 3-point free kick which occurs after a fair catch of a punt or kickoff.  It was a 45-yarder.  All free kicks since then have not been successful and there haven’t been too many.  The kick can be placed on ground with a holder or the really rare drop kick.  Here’s how the NFL describes the rule: “After a fair catch, the receiving team has the option to put the ball in play by a snap or a fair catch kick (field goal attempt), with fair catch kick lines established ten yards apart. All general rules apply as for a field goal attempt from scrimmage. The clock starts when the ball is kicked. (No tee permitted.)”

Follow Phil Myers on Twitter: @Protime_PFN

Follow PA Football News on Twitter @PaFootballNews

 
 
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