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Muncy extends winning streak to nine straight by beating Hughesville 24-6 on a rainy night

By JUSTIN BEITER 4 min read

MUNCY-Given the rapidly deteriorating field conditions at Stanley T. Schuyler Stadium, Muncy accomplished what needed to be done early on Friday night. While uniform numbers were still somewhat readable and the natural grass hadn’t quite turned into a sloppy mess, the Indians jumped out to a large first-half lead on the strength of some big plays. The strong start was enough to propel Muncy to a 24-6 victory over Hughesville, and send the Indians into the District 4 playoffs riding a nine-game winning streak.

Muncy (9-1) will face Montgomery next Saturday in a Class A semifinal.

“This field was just a mud pit tonight,” Muncy coach Sean Tetreault said. “Our kids came out hard. They played four quarters of good football, and we’re proud of them for getting a win in the last game of the (regular) season.”

Bailey Hadzinikolov got a hand on a Hughesville punt that wound up traveling just six yards, and Muncy would quickly take advantage of great field position. Ross Eyer made a great catch on the Indians’ first play from scrimmage that resulted in a 24-yard catch. Four plays later, Ty Nixon would cross the goal line from 11 yards out to get his team on the board exactly five minutes into play. It was the beginning of a big first half for the senior running back. On the first play of the second quarter, Nixon found his way through the line of scrimmage, and took off on a 67-yard run that gave Muncy a 14-0 lead with 11:46 left before halftime. Nixon led all rushers with 114 yards on 18 carries.

“It’s just nice to have Ty Nixon healthy this year,” Tetreault said. “He’s coming on strong. He’s doing a great job for us. It’s great to have him and Austin (Johnson) in the backfield. We had some other guys stepping up tonight. We had Jacob Fowler, Landyn Wommer, Elijah Weikle and Jacob Shuda getting carries. It was great to get all those guys experience while we’re going down the stretch.”

Later in the second quarter, Bryaden Kamerer recovered a fumble that was promptly cashed in for points on the next play. Branson Eyer found Ross Eyer down the right sideline for a 30-yard touchdown pass that beat man coverage. The Eyer-to-Eyer connection produced three receptions for 78 yards, as the weather conditions made it difficult for either team to pass, especially after halftime.

“We were so concentrated on the run game that we lost focus with our defensive backs,” Hughesville coach Howard Rainey said. “We kind of were staying up near the line of scrimmage, and we let guys get behind us.”

Hughesville (1-9) struggled to get anything going offensively for most of the night. Outside of an 11-yard run by Brenden Knight to start the game, the Spartans could only generate 43 yards of total offense on 24 first-half plays. A personal foul gave Hughesville an opportunity to begin a drive at the Muncy 47 midway through the second quarter, but an incomplete pass and three runs came up short of a first down.

“We were going to come out and start passing on them early,” Rainey said. “Of course, with the conditions the way they were, we had to change everything around and try to get our running game established. Just like we knew they had to run, they knew we had to run, and they just had a little more power.”

A steady rain continued throughout, and offense was hard to come by in the second half. The third quarter saw the teams produce just one combined first down. Following an interception, Loudon Boring continued his solid season by kicking a 26-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter. Hughesville finally broke into the scoring column late thanks to a 10-yard run by Aiden Bartlett in the waning seconds of play. Muncy’s first-team defense only surrendered two first downs and 52 total yards over three-plus quarters.

“Defensively, we did what we had to do,” Tetreault said. “We kept them out of the end zone with our starters. They got one at the end with our JV guys, but we’re excited. Our kids were flying to the ball. They were relentless. It was a great building block for us.”

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