Bellwood-Antis was supposed to travel to Mount Union for their weekly junior varsity contest. The Trojans however have just 27 warm bodies on their roster this year when everybody is healthy. So, the Blue Devils hooked up with Blair County foe Claysburg-Kimmel for a junior varsity game on Monday night at Bellwood Memorial Stadium.
On Monday, the Junior Blue Devils took advantage of some big plays on both sides of the line of scrimmage to jump out to a three-touchdown lead and then hung on to a 21-14 win.
Bellwood-Antis (3-1) moved in threes in the first half to key their third win of the season following a season-opening loss to Tyrone.
While the Blue Devils never really put together much on offense, Brandon Eger and David Burns made sure they didn’t have to.
Claysburg-Kimmel took the opening kickoff and moved down the field, controlling the ball for half of the first quarter. The Bulldogs came away with no points however when Burns came up with an interception and returned the pick 24 yards to the CK-49. Eger picked up nine yards, just short of a first down on the first play from scrimmage, and then came back on the next play to scoot 41 yards for the touchdown. Eger ran into a pack at the line of scrimmage, bounced to his right and easily outraced everybody the rest of the way for the score. Evan Celmo booted the first of three extra points.
Two plays later, Burns intercepted his second pass to get his team the ball in Claysburg territory. Bellwood-Antis stalled however and the quarter ended with B-A up 7-0.
Burns, who caught more Claysburg passes that all the Bulldog receivers picked off his third interception of the half to stop yet another Claysburg-Kimmel drive to cut short a 10-play march that ended once again short of paydirt.
The Blue Devils defense, led by Chad Coho, Ken Matley, Mike Guinard, Josh Peters, Caleb Stephens, Justin Miller and others, bent, allowing the Bulldogs to move the football, but kept them out of the B-A end zone.
Following a quarterback sack by Peters and Coho, a Claysburg punt left Bellwood-Antis at their own 25. A holding penalty, a two-yard loss by Eger and a pass completion that lost nine yards, suddenly had the Blue Devils backed up to the own four-yard line. That was all prologue for Eger, who got loose over the left side and was quickly gone for a 86-yard touchdown. Celmo booted the PAT for a 14-0 B-A lead.
Before the half was over, Eger took his turn on defense, picking up a Bulldog fumble and capping the Bellwood-Antis scoring with a 26-yard fumble recovery for his third score of the game. Celmo’s perfect placement gave the Blue Devils a 21-0 halftime lead.
Burns picked up his fourth interception in the third quarter and Brandon Pruznak also came up with a pick in the fourth quarter.
Claysburg got one score back, when under pressure, B-A quarterback Alan Wertz was intercepted by defensive limeman D. J. Holland who ran the ball 38 yards for a TD to cut the B-A margin to 21-6. The Bulldogs also put six more points on the board on an 11-play drive ending in a Joey Baker TD run that covered eight yards. Jason Reffner added the two-point conversion to slice the lead to 21-14, but Bellwood-Antis recovered the attempted on-sides kick and ran out the final 1:42 to secure the win.
Eger rushed for 197 yards on just 14 carries to lead the B-A offense.
The B-A defense limited Claysburg to 49 yards rushing over the first three periods and then the Bulldogs doubled that to drive 52 yards with their final TD to finish with 101 yards rushing and three of eight passes for another 32 yards, with five interceptions.
“The kids played really well tonight,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Randy Miller. “They fought hard against a pretty good team. It was a good hitting game by both teams.”
