Lycoming erases 19-point deficit to defeat Widener at home
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Mike Clark wasn't worried. There was no reason to be. All he and the rest of the Lycoming football team, except the 11 players on the field, could do was stand on the sideline and watch.
The Warriors had put themselves in position to win Saturday at David Person Field despite being down 19 points in the fourth quarter. All that was between them and an improbable victory was a 46-yard field goal attempt by Widener's Michael Raczak, the Pride's backup kicker.
As it fell wide of the goalpost, Clark threw his hands in the air and his players went berserk around him. His celebration was subdued. His players? Not so much.
And who can blame them? The Warriors trailed Widener by 19 points, starting quarterback Elijah Shemory was out of the game with an injured throwing hand, and the defense had already given up 42 points. But backup quarterback Chase Snavely led three fourth-quarter touchdown drives and Lycoming beat Widener, 43-42, in the second-largest comeback in Clark's 12-year tenure as the Warriors' coach.
Lycoming avoided going 0-2 for the third time in Clark's tenure despite allowing 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 2015. Conversely, Widener missed on its first 2-0 start since 2014.
"If they make that kick it's a one-play swing in an unbelievable small college rivalry," Clark said. "I would not have been happy if we were sitting here oh and two, but I'm unbelievably happy to have won that game."
For a large portion of the second half yesterday Lycoming was staring an 0-2 start squarely in the eyes. The Warriors allowed more than 300 passing yards in the first half. It allowed 11 passing plays of at least 20 yards in the game. Their two quarterbacks threw three interceptions, all in the second half.
Winning the game seemed like a fairy tale by the time the Pride's Ty Holbert made and incredible, falling, one-handed catch for a 30-yard touchdown to give Widener a 42-23 lead with 1:58 to go in the third quarter. Slowly the Warriors and Snavely chipped away.
With Shemory gone for X-rays on his right hand, Snavely engineered a 12-play, 59-yard drive which ended with his own 1-yard touchdown run. Just over 2 minutes later he needed only two plays to cover 71 yards as he hit Steve Toczylousky in stride for a 47-yard gain before finding Cristoff Minott wide open on a wheel route for a 24-yard touchdown pass.
All of a sudden, the Warriors were trailing just 42-26 with 10:38 to go and had every bit of momentum behind a quarterback who was a transfer from Lock Haven last spring. Expecting to win the starting quarterback job last fall, Snavely was beaten out by Shemory, who was a true freshman at the time.
But since that day, Snavely has prepared like he is the starting quarterback. He's attentive in meetings, asking the proper questions and maintaining a grasp of the offense which would have him ready to go when called upon. It's why Clark felt comfortable letting the sophomore air out his right arm in the game's most crucial spots.
Snavely finished 7 of 16 passing for 130 yards and a touchdown. Every single one of those numbers is a career high. But more importantly, his 7-yard run to the 1-yard line set up Joey Guida's game-winning touchdown run with only 26 seconds left in the game.
"I was disappointed when I didn't win the job, but I always knew I had to be ready in case anything ever happened to Elijah," said Snavely, who helped Middletown reach the state final as a senior in high school. "So I've always prepared like I'm the starting quarterback and I think it showed today that I was ready when my team needed me."
"For him to come in and play the way he did is a testament to coming in and being prepared," said Clark, who was unsure of Shemory's status after the game. "A lot of guys in his situation a year ago might not have hung in there. But he prepares like the starter even if he doesn't get the starter's reps, and it paid off for him."
The final result Saturday will mask, at least for now, the issues Lycoming had which caused it to fall behind by as much as it did before making its comeback. But the bottom line was Widener quarterback Sean McGaughey did as he pleased throwing the ball for much of Saturday's game.
The senior quarterback finished with 435 passing yards and five touchdown passes. He somehow found Zach Vanscovich sliding behind the Lycoming defense in the end zone for a 26-yard touchdown pass with only 6 seconds left in the first half on a fourth-and-16 play which gave the Pride a 28-16 lead at halftime.
Widener coach Mike Barainyak had decided to send the offense back on the field after Clark called a timeout to ice kicker Larry Eimer. The aggressiveness paid off in that moment, as it did much of the game as Widener attacked Lycoming's defense deep down field.
Barainyak got away from that passing game a little bit in the second half, instead trying to find a spark in the Pride's running game. But Widener averaged just 2.89 yards per carry in the second half. And when he let the offense on the field facing a fourth-and-1 from from its own 49-yard line with 4:27 left in the game, he chose not to run the ball.
Instead, McGaughey looked for a receiver running a shallow cross just behind the defensive line, but the pass wasn't close to being complicated. It left Lycoming with more than 4 minutes and a full complement of timeouts to try and drive for the go-ahead score with its backup quarterback.
"The thought process was just to stop them right there," Lycoming linebacker Sam Pawlikowski said. "The situation doesn't matter. We just went out there with the attitude that we're winning that down and we're winning that rep."
"We thought, let's gamble like we did (at the end of the first half) and see if we can take the pressure off the defense a bit," Barainyak said. "Looking back, you can always second-guess and say punt it and have them drive the field. But at the time we didn't feel real confident with where our guys were at trying to stop them in the second half and where we were with our wind and our depth. We took a gamble. We were playing to win and it just didn't work out."
Lycoming ripped off a 12-play drive which finished with Guida's (27 carries, 122 yards) second touchdown of the day. It was aided by a fourth-down pass interference penalty which extended the drive.
The only comeback bigger than yesterday's in Clark's tenure was a 43-42 win over nationally-ranked Delaware Valley in 2015 in which the Warriors trailed 42-21 in the second half. The Warriors won that game on a Devon Flynn field goal at the buzzer.
To secure the win this time, the Warriors had to watch as Raczak attempted his first field goal since Nov. 11, 2017 because Eimer tweaked his back earlier in the game and couldn't kick.
"Nobody ever gave up," said receiver Tyjah During, who had a career-high seven catches for 95 yards and a touchdown. "On the defensive side, they were struggling and we had their back the whole game because we knew they were going to step up in big moments, and they did."