Blairsville Secures Playoff Spot with Convincing Win Over Blacklick

Tagged under: District 6, News, pfn

Phil Myers | October 26, 2019

The Blairsville Bobcats played their best game of the year Friday night at Ernie Widmar Field at Memorial Stadium in Blairsville according to their head coach, Rick Artley.  The Bobcats excelled in every facet of the game as they downed the Blacklick Valley Vikings 36-7 on Senior Night to secure a District 6 Class A playoff position.

The offense was operating on all cylinders for much of the night thanks to the precision passing of quarterback Zak Artley and the solid rushing of running back Sincere McFarlin.  Artley hit on 9 of 11 passes for 161 yards and two scores, while McFarlin chipped in with 97 yards rushing and two touchdowns plus a couple of pass receptions totaling 78 yards and a score.

The Bobcat defense played a huge game too, stopping the Vikings twice in the first half on fourth down deep in Blairsville territory.  The second time was at the one-yard line.  They also forced two turnovers, including a fumble that was scooped up by Gabe Citeroni who rumbled 47 yards for the touchdown to round out the Blairsville scoring in the fourth quarter.

“For us to come out and have two big defensive plays on fourth down in that first half…they moved the ball but we just bent, bent, bent but we didn’t break.  That’s probably the game changer, not giving up any scores in the first half and then scoring quick on that long pass to Sincere.  That got us to where we needed to be,” commented Coach Artley.

Blairsville came out smoking as they drove 59 yards on ten plays, capped off by McFarlin’s two-yard run.  Artley connected with Isaac Witmer for the two-point conversion and the 8-0 lead.  After stopping Blacklick at the twenty-three, the Bobcats drove 77 yards on fourteen plays, scoring on Artley’s 30-yard pass to Devon Witmer.  Devon also caught the two-point conversion and with eight minutes left in the half, Blairsville led 16-0.

Blacklick’s Vikings in turn traversed 69 yards on fifteen plays, using up seven minutes of the clock, but quarterback Dom Dipaolo was smacked at the one by the Bobcat ‘D’ just as it looked as though he was going to score from the five on fourth down.

The third quarter saw another Blacklick Valley drive stall, this time at Blairsville’s thirty-eight.  On the first Bobcat play, Artley found McFarlin streaking down the home sideline.  A leaping attempt to knock down or intercept the pass failed by a Viking defender and McFarlin was home free.  The two-point try failed and the margin was now 22-0 for the ‘Cats.

Blairsville forced Blacklick Valley to punt on the Viking’s next possession.  Then they set off on a 16-play, 75-yard march that used up over 11 minutes of time before McFarlin scored his third touchdown on a 3-yard run.  Artley to Isaac Witmer put the lead up to 30-0.

The final score for Blairsville came when Cody Mocek and Eli Clevenger stripped the ball from Dipaolo as they sacked him and Citeroni found the ball laying in front of him, picked it up and outran an offensive lineman to the end zone.  That put the Bobcats up 36-0 and invoked the Mercy Rule of a continuous running clock.  Blacklick avoided the shutout when Dipaolo had a nice 6-yard run at the 4:34 mark.  Ian McGhee’s PAT gave the Vikings their seventh point.

“We made a couple of our goals,” said Coach Artley, “we were a 2-win team the last couple years.  For us to get 4 wins and to make the playoffs, you know those were two major goals.  Everybody at the beginning of the season picked us dead last, so for us to win like we did at the end, I’m very happy for our guys and it’s led by the line of scrimmage.  Our d-line and o-line controlled the game and when that happens, that’s when you get these types of games.”

Blairsville now stands at 4-6 and appears to be the tenth of twelve seeds in the D-6 single A classification.  Blacklick falls to 3-7 and still has a shot at the twelfth seed depending on the outcome of a couple other games.

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