The Bellwood-Antis junior varsity evened their record at 1-1 at Bellwood Memorial Stadium by ripping Penns Valley 26-8.
The Blue Devil jayvees used a great defensive effort and had the offense when it was needed.
Bellwood-Antis scored twice in the second quarter and then following a third-quarter score by the Rams, came back with a pair of fourth-quarter tallies to ice the victory.
The Blue Devils started out the contest with a first down on runs of eight yards by Brandon Eger and seven by Danny Campbell on the first two plays from scrimmage, but stalled out.
Penns Valley took their turn with jaunts of 26 yards by Eric Herrold and 18 more on the next call by Ryan Aukerman, but the B-A defense made sure that they got no further than the BA-27.
Beginning at their own 18, B-A drove 82 yards in eight plays with Campbell covering the final 29 yards for the score and Evan Celmo booted the PAT. A pair of pass completions from Evan Hughes to Justin Manning for 16 yards and to David Burns for 22 yards highlighted the drive.
Hughes found Brandon Pruznak for an 11-yard pass play on the first play of the following series and the rest of the march belonged to Campbell. Danny bolted 21 yards to the BA-3 and then went over the left side for the three-yard score.
Penns Valley put their lone TD on the board to cut the B-A advantage to 13-8, marching down the field 52 yards after getting the second-half kick. A pair of big pass plays went from Mahlon Poorman to Josh Kieffer first for 22 yards and two plays later for the 18-yard TD.
Several series later, Bellwood-Antis was backed up to their own six-yard line following a defensive stand by the B-A defense.
Eger took a handoff from Hughes, broke open down the left side, cut back to the middle and raced 94 yards for a long-distance score to give the Blue Devils a 19-8 margin with nearly nine minutes still to play in the ballgame.
Penns Valley again went to the air, with Campbell picking up an interception at the BA-46.
After going nowhere the first two plays, sophomore quarterback Alan Wertz hit Justin Miller for eight yards to bring up a fourth-down-and inches at the PV-45. Campbell went off the left side for five yards and a first down, then Todd Buchele picked up eight yards on the next play and then broke loose for the 32-yard touchdown a play later. Celmo’s PAT kick capped the scoring for the evening.
“The boys came to play tonight,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Randy Miller. “We had a pretty good week of practice and it carried over into the game tonight. Our defense really stepped up. I told the kids when they scored the eight points, that the momentum really switched and our kids stepped up to the call and were able to put it away. They really played well.”
The Blue Devils nearly doubled the Rams in total yardage with 256 yards rushing . led by Brandon Eger who had four carries for 101 yards and Danny Campbell with 11 totes for 70 yards, and 59 yards passing on a five-of-seven night for Evan Hughes, to total 315 yards.
The Blue Devil defense held Penns Valley to 57 yards passing on five completions out of 17 passes and 107 yards rushing for a total of 164 yards
