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Williamsport football overcomes sloppy night, downs Mifflin County 24-2

EVAN WHEATON/Sun-Gazette Williamsport football players take the field in a home game against Mifflin County. The Millionaires won, 24-2.

Williamsport football wasn’t thrilled on Friday night. In fact, the Millionaires were disappointed, despite a 24-2 win over Mifflin County.

The final score doesn’t paint the full picture. The four quarters of football played at STA Stadium were filled with miscues, a pile of flags and no one clicking together on either team.

For Williamsport (2-1), it’s been a concern early in the season.

“Our main problem, not just this game but our flaws as a team this year, we’re not really playing as one. We’re each looking at each other as individuals,” sophomore quarterback Frankie Morrone said. “We’re all good players and we all do good things, but we really just have to come together as one. We can’t keep talking about what we’re going to do, we just have to execute it.”

Heading into Week 3 of the Pennsylvania high school football season, Morrone led the area in passing yards with 412.

The 5-foot-11, 190-pound signal caller bolstered those numbers with 14 of his 25 passes completed for 156 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

Mifflin County’s offense was catching fire on its last drive of the first half. The chains were moving before the offensive unit started moving backward instead. Three flags and 15 penalty yards hindered the Huskies (0-3), preventing them from making any progress as they were held to a 10-0 deficit at halftime.

“We switched to our hurry up offense a little bit, which is a different personnel set than what they’ve seen before,” Mifflin County coach Scot Sechler said. “We were just trying to up-tempo it a little bit and catch them off guard. I think we tired them out a little bit, they were gasping there.”

The only points that came the Huskies’ way was on defense, and not even from their own players. A high-snapped ball sailed straight out of the back of the end zone, having never touched a Mifflin County player. The Huskies tried to create momentum after getting on the board, but ended a seven-play drive – and another three flags accumulated – with a punt.

“We always try to build off of everything. We fight, we scratch, we claw at everything we can get. We made enough mistakes tonight. We dropped a punt back here where we should’ve kicked it to the back of the end zone and taken the safety ourselves instead of giving them the ball at the 10 or whatever,” Sechler said.

“We made some mental errors tonight and there were some, what I would term ‘phantom penalties’ tonight which I thought were bogus but I had my discussion with the officials and we talked it out,” Sechler continued. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much I yell. The call is what the call is, (but) I have to voice my opinion. Coach Crews has a nice team here, he’s going to win a lot of games this year so I wish them the best.”

Morrone threw a 40-yard dagger to Jamaire Harden (five receptions, 104 yards) on the Millionaire’s fifth drive of the game to set up 1st-and-goal from the 10-yard line. Senior running back Keith Freeman (six carries, 22 yards) took it up the middle and to the house from there to give Williamsport a 7-0 lead with 8:41 left in the second quarter.

After a 35-yard field goal from Connor Poole six minutes later, Freeman added a second touchdown early in the third quarter on a 2-yard flick from Morrone.

Harden hauled in a 23-yard strike from Morrone for the last touchdown of the night with seven and a half minutes remaining. Despite pulling away on the scoreboard, Williamsport had its own share of penalties and muffed snaps.

It was another instance of the Millionaires struggling to gel as a cohesive unit.

“It had the feel like the first game of the season,” Williamsport coach Chuck Crews said. “I really wanted us to be a lot sharper today than what we were. It was a tad bit disappointing in that respect, but it was good to get the win of course. But a lot of stuff we need to clean up. A lot of stuff.”

Morrone connected with six different receivers on the night as the Millionaires’ offense began to find more success in the air during the second half.

Relying on that cushion to keep Williamsport afloat and just make it out with a win, Morrone made good use of the pieces around him late in the game.

“They make me better. Jamaire, Keith, Avery, DJ, all of them. I can’t thank them enough,” Morrone said. “Our line always does its job, I could never be mad at them, and (if you) put the ball in our athletes’ hands, good things are gonna happen.”

No one on either side liked what they saw, and there is much work to be done at practice for Williamsport.

“I certainly didn’t see fire or Christmas. I didn’t see what I wanted to see for us to be the team we want to be with our goals and aspirations,” Crews said. “Hats off to Mifflin County, they were physical and they ran around and left it all out on the field, but there’s no way it should’ve been scoreless after the first quarter. It shouldn’t have been scoreless after any quarter. We have to be better, plain and simple.”

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