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Turnovers hurt Green Dragons in road loss

SOUTH CENTRE TOWNSHIP — Generally, in football, the team that wins the turnover margin wins the game. This isn’t always the case, but is true more often than not.

It was never more true than in Friday’s Lewisburg vs. Central Columbia game. With the Green Dragons and Blue Jays sporting identical records and being just percentage points apart from one another in the District 4 Class AAA power rankings, a little mistake or momentum shift here or there could turn the tide and that was exactly what happened. Central scored 21 points off three Lewisburg turnovers as the Blue Jays defeated the Green Dragons, 42-16.

“That’s been our MO all year, unfortunately,” said Lewisburg coach Marc Persing. “We don’t get stops and we stop ourselves. First drive we go right down the field and we fumble. Second drive we go right down and settle for a field goal. This is the first game that we really had trouble pass blocking and give credit to their defensive ends.”

“It’s gut check time and we’ll see how they respond. That’s a very good football team, they don’t have any weaknesses and we’re probably going to be playing them again (in the playoffs). I really look forward to that matchup and maybe things will go a little different but for tonight they were a much better football team.”

Central had just 30 more yards of offense than Lewisburg but the difference in the game was the Blue Jays taking full advantage of the Green Dragons mistakes while Lewisburg was unable to take advantage of Central’s lone turnover or other opportunities.

The only Central giveaway of the game came on the Blue Jays’ first drive of the game off the opening kickoff when Trae Devlin was picked off by Andrew Ramirez inside the Lewisburg 10, and Ramirez returned it to the Lewisburg 31. The Green Dragons then marched down to inside the Central 10 off the strong running of Max Moyers, who ripped off a 43 yards run on his third of 30 carries on the night.

But Moyers was striped and fumbled on a third-and-goal carry from the 8 and Central recovered. The Blue Jays then needed just six plays to go 80 yards for a touchdown, capped by the first of three Isaac Gensemer touchdowns on the night, this one from one yard out. A 46-yard reception by Zander Bradley set up Gensemer’s score.

Lewisburg marched right back down on the field on its ensuing drive but was again stalled inside the 10 and had to settle for a Jack Dieffenderfer 25-yard field goal.

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