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Montoursville beats Danville at home as Pulizzi runs for 205 yards

Mike Brennan walked up behind his coaching counterpart and squeezed J.C. Keefer’s shoulders.

“That was a lot of fun, man,” the Danville coach said to Montoursville’s coach as he exited the field at Memorial Stadium in Montoursville. “I haven’t had that much fun in a while. Hopefully we see you again.”

Friday night’s matchup of unbeaten Class AAA titans lived up to the expectations. Splash play after splash play made the momentum swing more than the pendulum on a grandfather clock as the Warriors remained unbeaten with a 42-28 win.

But the game between these two explosive teams was decided by a 20-minute stretch of the second half when Montoursville grinded away at the clock. A patchwork offensive line which was ravaged by injuries throughout the week and night earned first down after first down, but not the way this incendiary offense is used to.

Rocco Pulizzi carried 30 times for the first time in his career as the Warriors’ 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-rubber-pellets offense kept the ball out of the hands of the Danville offense. And more importantly, it put points on the board.

Pulizzi ran for 205 yards and returned a kick for a touchdown. Montoursville held the ball for more than 17 of the second half’s first 20 minutes, and Dillon Young scored a pair of defensive touchdowns as the seventh-ranked Warriors asserted themselves as District 4’s team to beat in Class AAA.

“Rocco knows not every game is going to be, boom, 80-yard touchdown,” said Montoursville’s C.J. Signor, who moved from fullback to center because of the injuries on the offensive line. “It’s about that grind. It’s about reading his block and trusting his line that we’re going to leave a hole for him.”

“We’re kind of used to Rocco making that 60-yard splash play, but I kind of didn’t want that,” Keefer said. “The only way to stop (Danville quarterback K.J. Riley) is to have him over there on the sideline. So we wanted to grind it out, and it felt like we took out a big chunk of the third quarter.”

Montoursville pushed its halftime lead from seven points to two scores when it scored on the first possession after halftime. Dylan Moll ran a pair of wingback sweeps to start the third quarter, and then Keefer used the same motion on a play-action pass which got Moll open behind the Danville defense for a 54-yard touchdown pass from Maddix Dalena.

It was the cushion Keefer wanted so he could let his pepper mill offense take over and grind out the clock. The only hiccup in the half’s first 20 minutes was a Jagger Dressler interception return for touchdown, but even that wasn’t enough to dampen Keefer’s gameplan.

Instead, Montoursville held the ball for 9 minutes, 27 seconds of the third quarter, allowing Danville to run only three offensive plays. The Warriors held the ball for 7:44 of the first 8 minutes of the fourth quarter, allowing Danville to run just three more offensive plays in that time.

Montoursville averaged just 3.9 yards on 13 third-quarter carries. Through the first 8 minutes of the fourth quarter, that average jumped to 5.6 yards thanks to a pair of 13-yard jaunts by Pulizzi.

A mishmash offensive line, including Hunter Hanna, Lane Stutzman, Ethan Wanner, Signor, Thad Anderson and Jeremiah Caseman, found its unity. It found ways to create enough running room to keep the chains moving. The 4.7 yards per carry the Warriors averaged over the second half’s first 20 minutes weren’t as eye-popping as the 13 yards a pop Pulizzi averaged on the game’s first touchdown drive, but they were equally as effective.

The run game helped open up fullback Heath Jones in the flat on a play-action pass early in the fourth quarter. And with a monumental downfield block from Young, Jones trotted into the end zone to again extend Montoursville’s lead to two scores, 35-21.

“We knew they had the potential to do that with Pulizzi,” Danville coach Mike Brennan said. “It’s part of what they do. But we made them work for everything.”

By the time Danville’s offense and Riley (14 of 27, 283 yards, 3 TDs) got their hands on the ball for a sustained drive in the second half, it was trailing by two scores with only 4 minutes left on the clock. And when Zach Schmalhofer got in Riley’s face, forcing the senior quarterback to throw a deep out off his back foot, it was all Young needed to jump the route and return it 44 yards for a touchdown.

Danville has been adept at throwing the ball this year in Brennan’s spread offense. But overcoming a 42-21 deficit with fewer than 2 1/2 minutes to play was too much for Riley and his swift receivers.

“If anybody thought we were going to hold that team to not many points, they’re not watching high school football,” Keefer said. “But, I am a strong believer that in high school football if you throw it enough, something bad is going to happen. You’re going to throw an interception. That’s what I think the difference was. We were able to grind it out. They had to throw it a little bit.”

Montoursville gave up its fair share of big plays in the pass game. Dressler had receptions of 57 and 67 yards on his way to a career-high 182 yards. Carson Persing had a 27-yard touchdown catch. But the Warriors’ defensive front hounded Riley to the tune of four sacks, two interceptions, and a forced fumble.

“We knew coming into this game they were going to throw, throw, throw. But if they got a long ball, just buckle down, adjust and keep your head on a swivel,” Signor said. “Especially when it’s empty in the backfield, we can’t let (Riley) have all the time in the world. We have to put some pressure on him. He didn’t do too well under pressure.”

​It all led to one of the most satisfying wins in Keefer’s career. It wasn’t necessarily because of who the Warriors beat or what the teams’ records were coming in. It was satisfying because of the adversity the team faced during the week, and because it found a way to persevere through the adversity.

It was satisfying because Signor volunteered to move away from a position where he’s good for more than a few touchdowns a year to help out a depleted offensive line. It was satisfying because a player like Wanner, a sophomore who wasn’t expected to contribute much, filled in quite nicely along the line.

“It was a little more emotional for us in this win,” Keefer said. “To come out and play like we did and get the win and who we got it with, it was a lot of fun.”

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