Lancers’ season ends in AAA first round to the Ironmen
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Danville running back Gannon Feldmann surveyed his options. He danced around behind his paving offensive line for a moment before finding a crease off left tackle. He hit the hole hard, running over a pair of Loyalsock defenders in the process. He broke free from the would-be tacklers and ran away from the rest of the Loyalsock defense for a 67-yard touchdown run and he took Loyalsock's hopes of a rematch with Montoursville with him.
Danville took advantage of many Loyalsock mistakes as the Ironmen literally ran away with a 34-7 win Friday night at Kenneth Robbins Stadium in the District 4 Class AAA semifinals. It's the second straight year that Loyalsock (8-3) lost in the first round while Danville moves on to play Montoursville next week.
"I'm real proud of them. They've done anything you could ask. It just wasn't our night," said Loyalsock coach Justin Van Fleet. "We couldn't get much going, credit to Danville, they played an incredible game. They certainly did their job extremely well. … Only one team ever leaves feeling content. I wish our season was still going, I wish we had practice on Monday but the reality is we don't and my job is to pick these kids back up, dust them off and now get a head start on next year."
Loyalsock killed itself all game with penalties and turnovers. The Lancers had nine penalties for 70 yards, many of which were in crucial spots. Loyalsock also had three turnovers. Danville got up to a quick 14-0 lead in the first quarter and Loyalsock stumbled out of the gate as it had just seven yards on six plays in the first quarter. But the second quarter started and Loyalsock went right down the field thanks to a 20-yard pass to Hunter Webb and a couple big runs by Cole Cavanaugh. But once down to Danville's 6-yard line, the drive stalled. With a first and goal from the 6, Loyalsock had two straight penalties that backed it up 20 yards. Then Connor Watkins was sacked and he fumbled the ball as Danville recovered.
Loyalsock got its only touchdown on the first drive of the third quarter on Watkins 1-yard run but Danville immediately answered with another touchdown. Loyalsock again had a chance to get the lead down to seven but an interception, immediately followed by Feldmann's 67-yard run dashed any hopes of a comeback.
"These kids held to what we've done through the course of their time. They held together, we put together some good drives, we were close a lot, however, whenever we would try and get a big play, they'd make the big play and we weren't making the big plays," Van Fleet said. "That's the way the coin flips and so certainly a difficult day, a frustrating day in many ways. But the definition of what these kids are doesn't change."
Danville came out and controlled the line of scrimmage. The offensive line helped Feldmann (126 yards, 2 touchdowns) and Trent Hilkert (171 yards, 2 touchdowns) run for a combined 297 yards and two touchdowns. While the defensive front held Loyalsock to a 2.7 yards per carry average. Also, Danville held Loyalsock to 17 plays that went for zero or negative yards.
"They were able to control, and that's what I say all the time, they were able to control the offensive and defensive lines, said Van Fleet. "We turned the ball over and we committed a tremendous amount of penalties. Those are the three facets to the game that you have to take care of in order to win football games and in this game, we were 0-3."