Running the football well and getting the quarterback into a rhythm are two tried and true methods of helping out a young quarterback. In Montoursville’s season opener against Wellsboro at Memorial Stadium on Friday night, that’s exactly what they did for sophomore Elijah Eck in his fourth career start.

The sophomore got in a rhythm early on, and the run game dominated the last three quarters of the game as the Warriors rolled, 58-0.

“Anytime you have a good running game with two good running backs it takes a little bit of pressure off of a quarterback, because the other team’s got to take (the run) away first. That opened up a lot of things in the passing game for us. Elijah took advantage of it and the receivers took advantage of it,” Montoursville coach Joe Hanna said.

Wellsboro loaded up at the line of scrimmage early on to stop 1,300-yard rusher from a year ago, Christian Banks, and 600-yard rusher Hayden Harvey. Montoursville responded by going to the air. Three of their four plays on the first drive of the game were passes, and Eck completed all three, hooking up with three different receivers en route to finding Brayden Burkett in the end zone for the game’s opening touchdown just 51 seconds into the game.

“That first touchdown helped me ease the nerves and made me feel good about the game,” Eck said.

Eck (7 of 11, 145, two touchdowns), was buoyed by a running game that grew stronger as the game went on. In total, Montoursville tallied 325 yards on the ground on 39 carries, good for over eight yards a rush. There weren’t a lot of huge gains. Rather, it was consistent yards from both Banks and Harvey as the offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage throughout.

“Anytime you start throwing the ball around a little bit, your backs get some space. Once that happens, we can take advantage of it. You just take what the defense gives you. They were giving up the pass early tonight, and we were able to take advantage of the run later on,” Hanna said. ”

Montoursville tacked on a 28-yard field goal from Adam Shearer to close out the scoring in the first quarter, and Eck and Burkett hooked up again two minutes into the second quarter from 33 yards out to make it 17-0. And after allowing Wellsboro to drive into Warrior territory on the Hornets’ first drive of the game, Montoursville’s defense was lights out, teaming with consistent touchbacks off the foot of Shearer to win the field position battle.

That led to two short fields that resulted in two Warrior touchdown runs, as Banks made it 24-0 from two yards out with 6:49 left in the first half before Harvey closed out the half with a two-yard run of his own with just fifteen seconds left to make it 31-0.

Once again, Wellsboro got into Warrior territory on their opening drive of the second half. But, Kane Moore jumped as pass in the right flat and took it 63 yards to the house to put the game into the mercy rule.

Banks had been looking for a home run-type run all game, and it finally happened for him at the midway point of the third quarter. Banks found paydirt from 60 yards out, weaving his way through the Hornet defense.

“I definitely think that was probably my longest run of my career. That felt great as soon as I broke free,” Banks said. “I may not look that fast,but I definitely turned it on as much as I could and I sprinted it just so my teammates knew that I was giving all that I had.”

Hanna knew that the big run was coming for Banks.

“Christian’s a four-year starter. We know what we have with him. He’s patient tonight. He knew his time was gonna come eventually in the game. And he’s one of those kids, he will get 5, 6, 7, 5, and then he’s gonna bust a 60 -arder. With him and Harvey. We think we have real, two really good running backs in that room,” he said.

While the starting running back tandem returned from a year ago, the Warriors were breaking in a new receiving corps. They played a strong game, avoiding any drops. And, when in the open field, they looked dangerous.

“We were clean, which I’m happy with. They had a good night. It’s stressing in 7-on 7 and then off-season that a ball comes your way, you’ve got to catch the ball and take advantage of all that stuff,” Hanna said.