The Bellwood-Antis junior high football team made the long trip to Fishertown on Thursday evening to battle a strong Chestnut Ridge squad. The long journey on the bus, must have made the Blue Devils fall asleep in the middle of the game, because B-A scored twice early and then put two more scores on the board in the fourth quarter for a 30-0 triumph that improved the Blue Devils record to 7-0.
“We took a little bit tougher stance in practice this week,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach Charlie Burch. “Our number one mission was to stop Josh McDaniel, who from the newspapers was getting all their yardage and scores. We put in extra time working on our defense to get more people to the ball. It worked because we held McDaniel to no touchdowns and less than 15 yards rushing and Chestnut Ridge overall to less than 100 yards total offense.”
Bellwood-Antis started slowly, before a Nate Gray to Tyler Geis tossed short and underneath the Little Lions defense went for 15 yards and the initial first down. The Blue Devils marched right down the field from there to score with Gray plunging for the one-yard score. Before the first quarter expired, Randy Pfahler added a 15-yard scamper for a TD and Gray and Geis connected for the two-point pass play and a 14-0 lead.
The Blue Devils didn’t actually fall asleep at that point, but got a nice drive going only to lose the ball on a fumble and had another march halted at the CR-15, and just couldn’t add to their advantage.
While the offense failed to locate the end zone, the B-A defense never allowed the Ridge offense to get going at any pont in the contest.
In the fourth quarter, the B-A offense moved again for two more scores. Randy Pfahler ran a knock-right for 40 yards to inside the five and later Bellwood-Antis recovered a Ridge fumble at the CR-5 and Levi Hollen scored a pair of short TDs going three-yards on the first series and one-yard on the second. Pfahler rushed for the two-point conversion on the first score and Gray passed to Jason Miller after the second.
“This was a hard-fought battle that is not indicative of the score,” said Burch. “We are happy to get the win. We have two big games left and our kids need to know they will both be tough battles.”
