Williamsport was doing its best to hang with Jersey Shore throughout the first half of Friday night’s home game. The Millionaires trailed by just two touchdowns in the first quarter and only were down 28-14 at the break.

Defensively, the Millionaires were playing well against an outstanding Class AAAA Bulldogs team.

But Jersey Shore is a team that you can only hope to contain for so long. Eventually, the Bulldogs will start scoring seemingly at will, and that’s what happened in the third quarter.

The dam finally burst and Jersey Shore scored 27 third-quarter points and put the game away. What started as an exciting, close first half turned into a rout as Jersey Shore put the mercy rule into effect in the third quarter en route to a 67-40 win against the Millionaires in a high-scoring game with a lot of offense.

The win moves the Bulldogs to 5-1 and drops Williamsport to 4-2.

“We got to come out here and score at least 28 in second half, maybe 35. We probably have to score 35 points, you know what I mean, in the second half,” Jersey Shore coach Tom Gravish said on what he told the team coming out of the half. “We were not going to try to win 35-28 game by any means. We said if we don’t score 28 points, we may not win. So we just put the pressure on them.”

That pressure was evident. After scoring two touchdowns right before the half to cut the deficit to 28-14, Williamsport came out in the third quarter and lost a fumble before ending a drive with an interception. That fumble came back to hurt Williamsport as the Bulldogs capitalized and scored. Williamsport held Jersey Shore to a punt after the interception, but Jersey Shore scored touchdowns on their next three possessions to pull away.

“Scoring 67, we never thought that’d happen but we never thought we’d give up the other amount as well (defensively). We’ll learn from it. We told our kids, we’re playing in a tough environment. Great student body, big band, big stadium,” Gravish said. “Let’s go down and we’re playing in a place that has a lot of tradition, let’s have fun. It wasn’t easy, but we’ll take the win. We came out of it relatively healthy, so we’re pleased with that.”

Bo Sechrist scored on two out of three possessions for Jersey Shore to open the third quarter and put the Bulldogs ahead, 42-14. Jersey Shore ran the ball 50 times for an impressive 489 yards and ended the game with almost 700 yards of total offense (692). 

“Our big focus was you got to learn to fight and compete at their level. Jersey Shore has set the tempo for this whole area. Not the Coal Region, but the Williamsport area. That’s the bell cow for this area,” Williamsport coach Mike Pearson said. “So, we have to learn to rise to that, that’s what our focus was. Is it easy? Absolutely not, there’s a reason why they are who they are. But we have to learn to move in that direction. So that was our focus. But man, they’re good. They’re so good.”

After Sechrist’s two touchdown runs, Nolan Pauling found Mason Winters for a 50-yard touchdown strike before Sechrist would have a 21-yard touchdown run. That 27-point effort put the Bulldogs ahead, 55-14, with 2:32 to play in the third quarter.

“It was really frustrating, but how many times on film have you watched them do that to people? That’s Jersey Shore. That’s why they’re great,” Pearson said about the 27-point third quarter. “So it was frustrating, (our kids) just didn’t want to quit. I was really proud they kids didn’t quit; the coaches didn’t quit and there was no in-fighting. We proved so much in the past year that way. But I’m proud of the kids. They’re tough.”

Pauling threw for 203 yards on 10 of 15 passing and had five receivers catch passes.

Jersey Shore had three players rush for more than 100 yards in Bo Sechrist (24 carries for 160), Pauling (12 for 169) and Kash Herritt (6 for 117). 

Williamsport would battle until the end of the game however as Pearson noted.

That included Tevin Williams continuing to make plays with his arm and feet constantly. Williams threw for a career-high 320 yards on 14 for 26 passing and Trey Damschroder reeled in six catches for 178 yards. Williams threw five touchdown passes and ran in another.

He found Damschroder for a 70-yard pass with 2:05 to play in the third quarter and then the duo connected twice in the fourth for a 64-yard strike and 37-yard touchdown. Both those fourth-quarter touchdowns saw Damschroder wide open down the middle with no defenders anywhere near him.

“Tevin is the most wonderful kid because he’s got a heart of gold, but he just wants to compete and even when they were making great plays, you can hear him. He made the ultimate statement tonight. After one of their big touchdowns, he was talking Reese Holmes, our offensive coordinator, had a good play called. Tevin walked right by and said ‘I don’t care, we’re scoring,’ and he throws a touchdown the very next play. That’s Tevin Williams,” Pearson said. “That’s the kid that he’s grown up to be. It’s fun when you see kids that have that much heart and desire. You can hear, when he comes into our locker room, the energy goes through the roof. He’s a really fun kid that way.”

Williamsport played well from a defensive standpoint in the first half. The Millionaires’ first five drives all resulted in punts, but while the offense sputtered early, the defense didn’t allow Jersey Shore to make it a mercy rule game early and trailed just 14-0 in the first quarter. The Bulldogs’ first touchdown came with 3:18 to play in the first quarter when Pauling had an eight-yard run before Herritt broke a 65-yard run for a 14-0 first-quarter lead.

In the second quarter, Ashton Thomas made an unbelievably acrobatic grab on the sideline. With a Jersey Shore defender playing great coverage against him, Thomas was able to catch a Williams pass after the Millionaire quarterback had to throw before being hit and Thomas turned it into a 86-yard touchdown down the sideline to make it a 14-7 deficit. Williams would have a 68-yard run with 3:24 to play which made it a 21-14 deficit.

“They did a good job getting a little bit of pressure on us in the first half,” Gravish said. “We hit some open receivers, Nolan just didn’t have enough time to get his feet set and he had to try to get what he could get.”

However that was the closest Williamsport came to rallying. Pauling had a 51-yard run with 2:15 until halftime to go back ahead by two touchdowns and by the time Williamsport scored again, the mercy rule was into effect in the third quarter.

Both teams had offensive success. Jersey Shore had 692 yards of total offense while Williamsport had 420 — 320 of which came from Williams’ arm. Add it up and Friday night’s game saw 1,112 yards of combined offense.

Gravish noted the team has to clean up penalties. The Bulldogs committed 13 for 130 yards on Friday, a number of those penalties negating big plays and some taking away touchdowns. 

“Our goal is always to be in manageable down-and-distance situations. A couple of times it was second-and-20, third-and-20,” Gravish said. “We have plays for stuff like that, but percentages of you cashing in on those types of plays aren’t as high.”

Jersey Shore hosts Hollidaysburg next week and Penn Wood the following. Williamsport hosts Shamokin next week before traveling to Berwick on Oct. 10.