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Early on in Friday night's battle for the Morton F. Jones Memorial trophy between Wellsboro and North Penn-Mansfield it looked like there may not be one hundred total yards in the game. Field conditions on Bob and Marian Jones Memorial Field in Blossburg were somewhere between unplayable and unsafe.
Wellsboro's Joe Brown had other ideas. Brown's 61-yard scamper off the right side with 7:35 to play in the opening quarter set Wellsboro up with first and goal at the 5-yard line. One play later, Hornet quarterback Isaac Keane took it in for a Hornet touchdown.
It would be all Wellsboro would need as they beat North Penn-Mansfield, 13-0.
"I didn’t see anything on the inside so I had to bounce it out and I got as many yards as I could," Brown said. "I was just thinking to myself, 'don't slip'."
Not slipping was nearly impossible. Cutting was out of the question. There was not a single pass completed beyond the line of scrimmage. Seemingly half of offensive plays went for a loss of yards or no gain. This was despite the efforts of the players on both teams, who played their hearts out, dealing with the best of a bad situation that turned a proud rivalry into a mud bath.
Wellsboro started with the ball and the two teams traded punts before Joe Brown's long run to set up the Keane touchdown. Both teams exchanged more punts throughout the remainder of the first period and most of the first, before North Penn-Mansfield had their best scoring chance of the football game at the end of the second quarter.
After getting the ball near midfield after a Hornet punt, a first down run by Kohen Lehman and fifteen-yard facemask penalty at the end of the run gave the Panthers with their first and only red zone opportunity of the game. The Hornet defense held strong, though, and kept North Penn out of the end zone with a turnover on downs. Wellsboro kneed the remaining seconds off the clock and went into an abbreviated five-minute halftime with a 7-0 lead.
Lehman was fantastic for the Panthers. The junior running back had 91 yards on 33 carries and seemed most adept out of anyone on either team of keeping his feet underneath him and being able to gain positive yards. Where he really shined, however, was in the punting game. Lehman, who was filling in for normal punter Cam Fabian, who played but did not punt, had nine punts for an average of 35.1 yards, flipping the field and gaining yards in field position frequently for North Penn-Mansfield. He even turned what looked to be disaster on an off-line snap into a first down in the first half, scrambling across the field.
Neither team got much of anything going in the third quarter as field conditions deteriorated as the night went on, leaving a thick, soupy layer of mud all along the field.
Wellsboro got a huge break with just under nine minutes to play in the fourth quarter when a low snap went off of the leg of both players in the Panther backfield. The ball caromed forward and was recovered by Brown, setting Wellsboro up at the Panther 40.
After a Callahan first down run, Wellsboro got a new set of downs and advanced it to the Panther 20, where they faced a fourth and one. Coach Matt Hildebrand called Keane's number, and the senior looked to have enough room to pick up the crucial first down with room to spare. But, when he planted to cut upfield, he slipped, leaving him a half-yard short and giving North Penn-Mansfield new life with 4:23 remaining in the game.
The Panther drive could not get off the ground. After a false start on first down, a fumbled exchanged between Karson Dominick and Kohen Lehman was batted around, with both teams taking turns as the likely recoverees, as the ball rolled closer towards the Hornet goal line. North Penn-Mansfield did recover, but it pushed them all the way back to their own five-yard-line. Two plays later they were forced to punt.
Wellsboro would not give the Panther offense another chance to tie the game up. Facing a 3rd and 3 from the Panther 45, with a first down enough for Wellsboro to be able to come close to kneeling the game out, Isaac Keane had a play he will never forget. Wellsboro faked a jet sweep to Conner Adams, Hayes Campbell sealed the edge, Joe Brown kicked out a linebacker, and Keane went untouched to the end zone, sealing the game, and the Morton Jones Trophy, for Wellsboro.
"It was jet-counter. We'd been setting that up all game," Keane said. "We blocked it perfectly and I just didn't want to fall down. It felt amazing."
It was a subtle change in blocking schemes that sprung the play loose.
"Normally on that play I get up to the second level, but (offensive line) Coach Johnston told me to seal the edge and I did."
The playcall was influenced by running backs Darryn Callahan and Brown.
"(The two aforementioned backs) came over to me during the time and said they were overloading our strong side and so we ran counter against it and got the blocks," Hornet coach Matt Hildebrand said.
After losing a close game to North Penn-Mansfield last year, Hornet players were ecstatic to bring the Morton Jones Trophy back North to Wellsboro.
"It feels phenomenal, especially in my last game ever against North Penn-Mansfield, to bring Morty (a nickname both schools use for the trophy) home," Keane said.
After the game, longtime North Penn-Mansfield coach Tom Dickinson confirmed that this would be his final Morton Jones Trophy game. Dickinson led North Penn-Mansfield football to heights the program had never seen before and is the program's all-time wins leader. Dickinson has served as a coach for the Big 33 classic as well as The PSFCA all-star game.