Bellwood-Antis put one quick score on the board at Southern Huntingdon on Friday night and then allowed Southern Huntingdon to stay close. The Rockets trailed just 7-0 at the half, before tying the game at 7-7 with under a minute to play in the third quarter. The Blue Devils rallied in the final quarter for a pair of touchdowns however and held off an attempted rally by Southern to take home a 20-14 triumph.
B-A kicked off to begin the game, forced a Rocket punt, then pounded the ball down Southern Huntingdon’s throat. A 70-yard, 11-play drive resulted in a score. Dan Houser scooted 15 yards on the opening play, Shawn Weiand completed a pair of 10-yard passes to Matt Sneath and Houser covered the final three yards for the TD. Troy Brunner’s PAT kick gave the Blue Devils a fast 7-0 advantage with 4:30 to play in the first quarter.
Although Bellwood-Antis controlled most of the first half, a goof here, a miscue there, kept B-A from scoring for the rest of the half. Bellwood-Antis ran a dozen more plays than Southern Huntingdon, but wasn’t able to add to their lead.
Throughout the first three quarters, the B-A defense gave ground grudgingly to the Rockets, while holding Southern out of the endzone. With just 31 seconds left in the third quarter, finally Southern Huntingdon senior quarterback Corey Doyle followed his line three yards for TD and foreign exchange student Andre Almeida booted the tying PAT.
On the next-to-last play of the third quarter, Bellwood-Antis began from their own 17 yard line. Weiand, who had completed just one of his previous five passes for zero yards, hooked up with Derrick Hoffer for a 35-yard pass play to the Rockets 20. After Matt Sneath bulled for five yards on the final play of the quarter, Houser took care of the rest personally with gains of nine and then six for his second TD of the night. Brunner boomed the PAT to give the Blue Devils back a 14-7 lead.
On the next series, the Blue Devil defense stuffed Southern on a third down and four to force the Rockets to punt.
On offense again, B-A quick-marched for what would prove to be the deciding points. Houser got the Blue Devils out of a hole picking up a gain of 26 yards on the first play, then two calls later Shawn Weiand got to the outside and went 19 more. Travis Ehredt made his only carry of the ballgame momentous, bulling through the line on a counter and racing 36 yards virtually untouched for a touchdown. A bad snap from center prevented the Blue Devils from increasing the score, but with eight minutes to play, Bellwood-Antis had climbed into a 20-7 lead.
“We had some big plays there,” said Bellwood-Antis Coach John Hayes. “Danny Houser got us out of a big hole, on his own, broke a tackle when we could have been in trouble. We had a touchdown lead, but Houser got us out of a hole and then Weiand made a big run.”
Southern Huntingdon, averaging over 300 yards and 32 points per game in a three-game win streak, put together a scoring drive to tighten the game to 20-14. The Rockets moved 65 yards for their second tally converting a fourth down and five along the way before Kasey Kuhns bulled two yards for the score and Almeida booted the PAT.
With Southern trailing by six points and four and a half minutes to play, everybody in the stands and on the field knew an onsides kick was coming. Bellwood-Antis recovered, but was able to net just one yard in three tries and punted to Southern.
Doyle picked up two nine-yard gains, but went to the air once too often and Dan Houser was johhny-on-the-spot with an interception that gave the ball to the Blue Devils with 48 seconds to play and Southern Huntingdon out of timeouts. Weiand took a knee twice and the win was the Blue Devils’.
“This was really a big win,” emphasized an obviously elated coach Hayes. “To come down here on the road, going against a team that had been pretty hot, a good football team, with a lot of weapons was just simply great. They have some terrific people, the Doyle kid at quarterback can make a lot of plays. We played great defense. We gave up some yards, but they have been averaging over 300 a game and we held them below that tonight, I believe. I was real concerned at the end of the game. I knew that missed extra point was going to be a factor. I was really worried, but our kids played big. We didn’t give up the big plays and we hung in there, bent a little bit and then our offense exploded. Houser making that pick at the end was huge. He played big all night on both offense and defense. A lot of kids had big games. Sometimes you lose track of it in the heat of things and I don’t want to omit anyone. I was real, pleased with our effort.”
Houser led all runners in the game with 145 yards and two TDs on 24 carries. Matt Sneath added 37 yards on 11 carries and caught two passes for 20 yards. Shawn Weiand completed four of nine passes for 55 yards and finished with a net total of 10 yards on eight carries, despite getting sacked while attempting to pass for 20 yards in losses.
Bellwood-Antis (3-2) is on the road again next Friday traveling to Spring Mills to battle Penns Valley.
Bellwood-Antis 20, Southern Huntingdon 14
Score by quarter
Bellwood-Antis – 7 0 0 13 – 20
Southern Huntingdon – 0 0 7 7 – 14
Scoring
First Quarter
BA – Houser 3 run (Brunner kick) 4:30.
Third Quarter
SH – Doyle 3 run (Almeida kick) 0:31.
Fourth Quarter
BA – Houser 6 run (Brunner kick) 11:29.
BA – Ehredt 36 run (kick failed) 8:01.
SH – Kuhns 2 run (Almeida kick) 4:26.
Team Statistics
BA SH
First Downs 16 15
Rushes 49 42
Rush yards 212 236
Passing att. 4-9 4-9
Pass yards 55 35
Int. by 1 0
Fumbles/rec 2/0 2/1
Penalties 2-20 0-0
Punts 2-32.5 3-35.3
Total Yards 267 271
Individual Statistics
Rushing
Bellwood-Antis: Houser 24-145 (1 TD), Sneath 11-37, Ehredt 1-36 (1TD) Weiand 8-10, Hoffer 3-(-4), Team 2-(-2).
Southern Huntingdon: Kuhns 14-101 (1 TD), Bilger 13-59, Doyle 10-49 (1TD), Neuder 4-14, Everhart 1-13.
Passing
Bellwood-Antis: Weiand 4-9, 55 yards, 0 TD, 0 Int.
Southern Huntingdon: Doyle 4-9, 35 yards, 1 INT., 0 TDS.
Receiving
Bellwood-Antis: Sneath 2-20, Hoffer 1-35, Houser 1-0.
Southern Huntingdon: Hewitt 2-27, Kuhns 1-7, Everhart 1-1.
