Bellwood-Antis will celebrate the Blue Devils annual Homecoming on Friday night, returning home after two weeks on the road to Penns Valley and Bald Eagle Area. B-A (2-1) winners of two straight after a season-opening loss at home to Tyrone will welcome Mount Union (0-3).
Coach John Hayes and his staff and the veteran players who played in the game at Mount Union hope the 2005 game will not be the same.
Bellwood-Antis traveled to Mount Union and Hayes’ first clue was the attitudes of his players on the bus ride, who seemed to have read their press clippings and very nearly took Mount Union too lightly. That was only magnified by the Blue Devils play over the first three quarters of the game. Bellwood-Antis had to fight for their lives to score 10 unanswered points in the last quarter to just barely avoid a huge upset and win 17-14 over a hard-fighting Trojan team.
Long-time Bellwood-Antis head coach John Hayes needs just one more win to reach the coveted 200-win plateau. Hayes in 26 years at the helm of the Blue Devils is 199-72-2.
The Mount Union Trojans opened the 2005 season with a 47-0 loss to Triple-A Huntingdon, dropped a 36-6 decision to fellow Inter-County Conference Nittany Division foe Chestnut Ridge and then got stomped by Moshannon Valley 46-0 last week.
The Trojans began the season with only 27 warm bodies on their roster and have suffered several injuries that may keep some of their players out of the game this week.
Mount Union has had a tough time through the first three weeks of the season adjusting to the offensive alignments of third-year head coach Mike Maclay and have been able to generate very little offense.
Senior fullback Lyle Kylor (5-11, 204) leads the squad in rushing with 73 yards on 34 carries. Nick McConaughey (5-6, 150), a junior running back/flanker has rushed 21 times for 69 yards, but suffered a shoulder injury in the Chestnut Ridge game and did not play last week.
Bill Shives (jr., 6, 170) is the Trojan quarterback, completing six of 24 passes for 106 yards, three interceptions and no touchdown passes. Shives, who was also the Trojans’ punter, was injured against Mo Valley, and was replaced by Brandon Carper (JR. 6-3, 180). Carper was 0-for-two against Moshannon Valley.
Kylor is the leading receiver with two catches for 17 yards, Devon Smith (soph, 5-5, 130) has one catch for 40 yards, Nick McConaughey has one reception for 37 yards and Josh McConaughey (jr., 5-6, 165) has one for 15.
“Mount Union is pretty diverse on offense, they try a couple of things,” said Bellwood-Antis coach John Hayes in his midweek report. “They run out of a Pro-I, Power-I, even a slot at times, but mostly will go with the Pro-I. They have a pretty small squad without a lot of experience or talent. It didn’t help that they opened up against Huntingdon followed by Chestnut Ridge and Moshannon Valley, a few pretty decent football teams. They are young and have come up against some pretty good opposition.”
The Mount Union defense has been hard-hit by the teams they have played in the early season. The Trojans have been outscored 129-6 and outrushed 857-159. The MU defense has given up 1,082 yards in total offense, while gaining only 267 yards.
“Mount Union has used two basic defensive alignments,” said Hayes. “Both are really eight-man fronts with a three-deep secondary. The majority of time they line up in a 4-4, but last week when Moshannon Valley was running the ball successfully a lot, they slipped into a 6-2 look to get more people on the line.”
Mount Union will start Frank Fortney (Jr. 6-1, 150) at split end, Brandon Carper or Brandon Deamer (Sr. 5-10, 165) will be the tight end. Brad Kauffman (Sr., 6-2, 240) and Kevin Seibert (Jr., 6-0, 250) are the tackles, Mike Harkless (Jr. 5-10, 165) and Dustin Kester (Sr., 6-0, 185) are the guards, and either Kyle Wise (Jr., 5-8, 200) or Mike Wilson (Sr., 6-0, 235 will be at center. Bill Shives or Carper will be at quarterback, J. McConaughey is the tailback, Lyle Kylor is the fullback, and Nick McConaughey or Devon Smith will be at flanker.
On defense, Seibert, Kauffman and Greg Moore (soph, 5-9, 275) will man the two tackle spots, Kester and Wes Cramer (Sr. 6-0, 195) are the ends. Shives and J. McConaughey or Cramer will be the inside linebackers and Deamer and N. McConaughey will go at outside linebacker. Fortney and Smith are the cornerbacks and Carper is the safety.
The Blue Devils began the season slowly, but have shown signs of picking it up another notch on offense and defense during the last two weeks. After a 31-19 drubbing to Tyrone, B-A has outscored their next two foes 66-14 and would have more last week if they hadn’t shot themselves in the foot so often. Although B-A turned the ball over six times, they still managed 370 yards rushing and another 100-plus through the air against BEA.
Josh Kleinfelter had a monster game with 276 yards and three scores on 30 carries and had a pass completion called back on a penalty that carried inside the five-yard line as well. Kleinfelter has 480 yards on 67 carries for the season. Jon Davilla adds 17 carries for 91 yards and sophomore Brandon Eger has nine carries for 63 yards.
Senior quarterback Kyle Drost has completed 19 of 42 passes for 315 yards with four TD passes and four interceptions. Dan Kovac has been Drost’s favorite receiver with eight catches for 137 yards. Devon Clapper has four for 50.
Kleinfelter has scored seven TDs for a team-high 42 points, Kovac has three TDs for 18 points, Clapper has two scores for 12 points and Evan Celmo has kicked a 32-yard field goal and eight PATs for 11 points.
“I think most of the mistakes we made last week were mental rather than physical, “ said Hayes. “This week we are working on the cerebral rather than physical in correcting the type of errors, we have been making. Our kids have good fundamentals, They were looking for extra yards. We have to stress more patience-to not try and do what we can do, instead of trying to do more. We need to focus. We are settling in and should go with the same people we have been playing, to get better each week and to realize we can’t take anybody too lightly.”
