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Mistakes prove costly as Lycoming falls to 0-3 after loss to Dickinson

By Jon Gerardi 6 min read

After Dickinson scored a touchdown on a 28-yard pass on a nine-play, 86-yar drive, Lycoming knew it had a chance before the half to go ahead and drive down field right before halftime and score to shift some momentum entering the break.

The Warriors were looking at a 10-point deficit and were keeping it close with Dickinson. So with 7:20 showing on the clock, the Warriors put together a drive that ate up six minutes of game clock and got toward the red zone.

But as well as that drive was going -- 12 plays for more than 50 yards -- disaster reared its ugly head at the most inopportune time for the Warriors.

Lycoming quarterback Joe Lyons tried to hit a receiver, only to see Dickinson pick him off with 1::09 to play until halftime on the 2 yard line.

It was the story of the day for Lycoming. When the Warriors had a chance, Dickinson stepped up. It resulted in the Red Devils leaving David Persun Field at Girardi Stadium on Saturday with a convincing 52-29 win, keeping Lycoming (0-3) winless this season.

For Clark, that sequence to end the first half is what stood out the most to him.'

"We're at the red zone, we're at the 6-yard line if I remember correctly. We took a penalty. I can't even imagine what the penalties look like. Embarrassing is what I would say," Clark said of the team's nine penalties. "You feel good about being at the 6 and worst case scenario, under two minutes we're not going to call a timeout, we're going to bleed as much of it as we can to get out you hope within a touchdown."

Instead, Dickinson drove 98 yards in 54 seconds to punch in another score and that 10-point deficit suddenly became 17.

"That's a 14-point swing right there. You go from (possibly) 24-17, they're still getting ball coming out in second half, but we can't let that happen. We just can't, and we did, and that's not good."

The Lycoming defense struggled throughout Saturday's game limiting Dickinson as the Red Devils moved the chains at will. Dickinson had 29 first dons and had six consecutive drives go 61 or more yards between the first and third quarters. Dickinson only punted the ball twice and had six touchdown drives.

"We forced a turnover near the endzone and we blocked a field goal. We have to figure some things out defensively and that's what we talked about, among other things. We allowed a special teams touchdown, we dropped -- we're 19 for 37 -- we had to have had six drops. We had two bad interceptions," Clark said. "One was a good decision, but they don't need help moving the football."

Lycoming held a 14-10 lead after the first quarter thanks to Muncy graduate Ross Eyer catching a 32-yard touchdown pass from Lyons with 2:34 to play. But that would be the final lead Lycoming would have in the game.

Dickinson scored three second-quarter touchdowns as Kellen Boyer caught a 33-yard pass from Ben Klassen, Braiden White caught a 28-yard slant for a score from Klassen and then Klassen converted a touchdown on a five-yard run

That close 14-10 Lycoming lead suddenly turned into a 31-14 Dickinson lead at halftime.

Lycoming blocked a field goal on Dickinson's opening drive in the third quarter, but Lycoming couldn't capitalize on the ensuing possession, fumbling it away. Dickinson then used eight plays to punch in a touchdown and extended the lead to 38-14 with 6:27 remaining in the third quarter.

Dickinson ran the ball 48 times for 366 yards as Cedric Benning III had 22 carries for 173 and a touchdown and Dane Sorensen ran the ball nine times for 131 as the duo averaged 7.9 and 14.6 yards per carry, respectively, helping the Red Devils sustain drives on Saturday.

"The lack of poor tackling. We have to get (that) fixed," Clark said. "Those are things you just can't have."

The closest the Warriors got the game in the second half is when Lycoming trailed 38-21 following a huge 89-yard Terrence Oliver touchdown run with 14:37 to play in the fourth quarter. Oliver was a bright spot in a rough outing for Lycoming on Saturday as the running back had an impressive 298 rushing yards, second-most in school history in a single game as he caried it 22 times and had two touchdowns. He also averaged 13.5 yards per carry for the Warriors.

That Oliver 89-yard touchdown run, however, cut the lead down to 17 points with nearly the entire fourth quarter to play, giving Lycoming some momentum with a possible rally feasible, but it never came to fruition as Dickinson would score twice in the fourth quarter to prevent any comeback attempt.

"We had at least five drops, some pre-snap penalties, two turnovers. So that's 10 plays, not to mention a sack or two. That's like 12 mistakes out of 70 plays and typically if you're like higher than 12% (of total) it's really, really hard to win in that scenario, right? So you're allowed in that scenario maybe seven or eight total mistakes there of that capacity," Clark said. "Because they're playing hard too, they're playing well, so you can't drop the ball. You can't have the penalties. We made a mistake, an unforced mistake, probably 15-20% of the time and that's just not good enough."

Following Oliver's 89-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, he would later score a 3-yard touchdown pass from Lyons with 6:24 to play and cut the deficit at that point to 45-29 following Loyalsock graduate Brendan Clark's two-point conversion reception.

Muncy graduate Ross Eyer led Lycoming with 67 receiving yards on six receptions including a touchdown while Clark had three catches for 38 yards.

Dickinson 52, Lycoming 29

Dickinson 10 21 7 14 -- 52

Lycoming 14 0 0 15 -- 29

First quarter

D--Justin Worobel 21 field goal, 11:35.

L--Terrence Oliver 73 run (Vasco Granitto kick), 5:48.

D--Keesean Campbell 88 kickoff return, 5:36.

L--Ross Eyer 32 pass from Joe Lyons (Granitto kick), 2:34.

Second quarter

D--Kellen Boyer 33 pass from Ben Klassen (Worobel kick), 11:25.

D--Braiden White 28 pass from Klassen (Worobel kick), 7:26.

D--Klassen 5 run (Worobel kick), 0:15.

Third quarter

D--Cedric Benning 1 run (Worobel kick), 6:27.

Fourth quarter

L--Oliver 89 run (Granitto kick), 14:37.

D--Mathias Young 2 pass from Klassen (Wrobel kick), 9:19.

L--Oliver 4 pass from Lyons (Lyons pass to Brendan Clark), 6:24.

L--Keesean Campbell 3 run (Worobel kick), 3:21.

TEAM STATISTICS

D L

First downs 29 21

Rushes-yards 48-366 32-328

Passing yards 266 182

C-A-I 19-32-1 19-37-2

Total yards 632 510

Fumbles-lost 0-0 2-1

Penalties-yards 3-21 9-66

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING--Dickinson, Cedric Benning III 22-173 TD, Dane Sorensen 9-131, Keesean Campbell 10-37 TD, Ben Klassen 4-28 TD. Lycoming, Terrence Oliver 22-298 2 TDs, Spencer Ferguson 4-13, Michael VanHorn 2-10, Joe Lyons 3-4, Elijah Jordan 1-3.

PASSING--Dickinson, Ben Klassen 19-32-1 266 3 TDs. Lycoming, Joe Lyons 19-37-2 182 2 TDs.

RECEIVING--Dickinson, Kellen Boyer 4-77 TD, Brafen White 4-63 TD, Liam Kallen 1-48, Kevin Schmidt 2-26, Mathias Young 2-20 TD, Dane Sorensen 3-17, Cedric Benning III 1-14, Leon Friebel 2-1. Lycoming, Ross Eyer 6-67 TD, Brendan Clark 3-38, Terrence Oliver 4-34 TD, Michael VanHorn 3-29, Colin McGrory 1-8, Karson Kline 1-7, Jared Zimmerman 1-6.

INTERCEPTIONS--Dickinson, Sean Couvertiere 1, Chris Barnes 1. Lycoming, Ryan Pentz.

SACKS--Dickinson, Julien Devlin 1.

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