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Sutliff, Cannon help lead Bucktail to win

SOUTH CENTRE TWP. — Traditionally one of the smallest schools in Pennsylvania in enrollment, Bucktail often fields a proportionally small football roster, which is also usually among the smallest in the state.

So when something that might seem trivial for most other teams comes up and causes even just one player to miss a game, it has the potential to have an extremely negative effect on the Bucks, which have only 17 players on their roster. So, had Columbia Montour Vo-Tech not graciously agreed to move Saturday’s kickoff to 11 a.m., the Bucks — who dressed just 16 for this game — would have been forced to play with only 13 players or forfeit due to three of its players being involved in a wedding later in the day.

Thankfully for Bucktail, CMVT did move the kickoff and the Bucks made the most of the opportunity, as both Gage Sutliff and Blake Cannon reached 100 yards rushing, with Cannon adding a pair of touchdowns, and Bucktail rallied from a halftime deficit with a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns to record its second win the year, 22-20 over the Rams.

“I can’t begin to tell you how much this speaks to our 17 kids. I wouldn’t trade a single one for anyone,” said Bucktail coach Bruce Ransom. “We wouldn’t have even played the game (if it had kicked at 1 p.m.). You can’t play with 13 so we would have had to forfeit.”

A sequence late in the third and into the fourth quarter turned the tables for the Bucks as they overcame a 12-8 halftime deficit, took a 10-point lead, and then held off a late CMVT charge to preserve the win.

The Rams received the second half kickoff and put together a long drive that took up over half the quarter, going from their own 44 to the Bucktail 8. They had an eight-yard touchdown pass, which would have put them up by 10 points, called back due to an ineligible man downfield penalty. On the ensuing third-and-goal play, quarterback Trevor Welsh was stopped on a keeper just short of the goal line, but the Rams were flagged for two penalties – holding and a dead ball unsportsmanlike conduct infraction. The Bucks declined the hold so the down would count and the 15 yards for the dead ball foul left CMVT with a 34-yard field goal attempt, which was missed with 5:17 remaining in the quarter.

“That touchdown being called back just broke their backs and they didn’t recover mentally from that,” said CMVT coach Mark Varner.

From there, Bucktail took over at its own 20, and the Bucks put together a methodical 19-play drive that spanned 7:32, featuring seven first downs and going 5 of 5 on third-down conversions. All 19 plays were rushes, including the capper, a 5-yard touchdown on third-and-goal by Cannon, who finished with an even 100 yards on 16 carries, six of which were on that drive.

“When I say we’re creative, we’re as creative as we can get. We do a lot of things and we’re blessed that with only 17 guys, we have three very good-sized backs and the difference in this game was the second half,” said Ransom. “We have a three-back rotation and a quarterback who can protect the ball so we were able to move the sticks. You can grind it out when you get 4-5 yards on every carry.”

“We knew what was coming and that Bucktail is a good running team but we just couldn’t stop it,” said Varner. “We did not have gap responsibility on defense.”

That drive and score gave the Bucks a slim 14-12 lead after the two-point conversion failed. But Bucktail’s defense responded by making CMVT go three-and-out on its ensuing possession. The CMVT punt gave the Bucks possession at their own 34 with 9:08 remaining.

From there, Bucktail put together another methodical scoring drive, this one taking 4:12 and going 66 yards on eight plays, seven of which were runs. The one that wasn’t was the most important, a fourth-and-7 from the 25 as Richard Perry went play action, faked a hand off and rolled left and found a wide open Logan Long for the score. Gage Sutliff punched in the two-point conversion to put the Bucks up by 10 with 4:56 remaining.

Liam Dwyer picked off Welsh on the second play of CMVT’s next possession, giving the Bucks the ball on their own 34 with 3:45 remaining. Bucktail drove to the CMVT 45 and elected to go for it and a fourth-and-2 from that point and put the game away but did not convert, giving CMVT the ball back at their own 43 with 1:12 remaining.

Two plays later, Welsh found Michael Starr in the end zone for a touchdown and the Rams converted two points to cut it to 22-20 with 28 seconds remaining. CMVT’s pooch kick was recovered by the Bucks to seal it.

Aside from that play and a 76-yard touchdown pass from Welsh to John Binder early in the second quarter, Bucktail limited the CMVT offense, specifically by its two key offensive players, Binder and Sevon King. Binder had just two other catches for 12 yards and 28 rushing yards on seven carries and he was unable to get around the corner on his rushes to utilize his speed. King was limited to 65 yards on 10 carries, 32 of which came on a single carry.

“We really felt that we’d take our chances through the air as opposed to having King run over us and fortunately, that played into our hands,” said Ransom, who moved a safety to double cover Binder after the 76-yard touchdown came on single coverage. “King and Binder have been the two kids that won the last two meetings between our teams so we put the faith in our defensive edge players and tried to keep King inside to limit his downhill running.”

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