Call off the search team, the Central Mountain Wildcats are no longer looking for their first victory at home.
The game was a "pink out" last night in support of spreading awareness in the fight against breast cancer.
Central Mountain proved they still have a lot of fight too, downing Athens 38-19.
"It was a big win for our kids to get that first victory at home," CM head coach Vinnie Kishbaugh said. "We talked and stressed about it all week, this is a two-game season. We need to be undefeated at the end of that season. I think the kids really took that to heart and they've done a heck of a job. Again, our offensive line exceeded a lot of peoples expectations. They did a great job tonight, facing a good defensive line that Athens has."
If you got stuck in traffic, you might have missed the entire first quarter. In real time, the first period took less than 20 minutes to complete. The game didn't start out well for Athens in the opening kickoff. Tyler Birdsall was back to receive and he had to haul in a low kick. Unfortunately for Athens, Birdsall knelt down a bit too low. The official ruled Birdsall's knee was down and right away Athens was in a hole, starting at their own eight yard line.
Coming into last nights contest, Birdsall only needed 18 yards on the ground to clear the 1,000 yard milestone.
He got what he needed and then some in Athens' first possession.
"Well, he's just one of the many good players we have on this team," Athens head coach Jack Young said. "We have three kids that we're comfortable with running the ball. But, Tyler is a hard runner and we executed what we wanted to do with our running game in the first half. Then in the second half we got away from our game plan a little bit. In the end, Central Mountain outplayed us on the line of scrimmage."
Here's why the first quarter went by so quickly. Athens put together a time draining first drive, running 15 plays and using Birdsall on nearly every play. There was just one negative about that sustained drive.
No points.
"That was tough," Young said. "We have a good kicker and it was just miss communication with the holder. Coming away with no points is fine because we did what we needed to do. We executed what we did all week in practice. But you have to give Central Mountain credit, they're a good physical football team."
South 43, CV?12
South Williamsport scored five touchdowns in a 7-minute span in the first half in defeating Cowanesque Valley Friday night, 43-12 at Westfield.
Dominick Bragalone scored two touchdowns for South, Andrew Gipe returned a punt 99 yards for a score, and Tyler Jenkins returned an interception 18 yards for a touchdown.
North Penn 42, CMVT 0
At Blossburg, Taylor Hillson completed 7 of 8 passes, including four for touchdowns, as North Penn routed Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech.
Devin Remley and Sam Bohnert each scored two touchdowns for North Penn, which outgained CMVT 236-67.
