For a program that has done most of its offensive damage on the ground for the better part of the last two decades – if not even further back – South Williamsport has had an uncharacteristic strong passing game this year.

Not that the Mounties couldn’t complete a pass in the past, but their offense was never balanced or terribly reliant on an air attack to be successful.

That has changed this year, however, and South’s passing game may have culminated in Friday’s regular season finale against Northwest.

Cole Gerber completed 21 of 27 passes for a single-game school record 307 yards and six touchdowns as the Mounties put a bow on the 2025 regular season with a 62-0 win over Northwest.

“We’re so proud of Cole, he’s just a sophomore and he threw eight passes as a freshman. Levi Butler hasn’t played football since middle school, so those guys are underclassmen and we’re excited about them,” said South coach Chris Eiswerth. “We saw as we matriculated through the season that the kids were accumulating some really good numbers and had good games against some really good teams. So we figured as we continued to go, we could do some things (through the air), so they worked hard and did what they needed to do and came out tonight and really put one together.”

In addition to Gerber’s single-game record, two additional single season records were broken on Friday. With 14 catches for 187 yards and a pair of touchdowns, Butler broke the school record for receptions in a single season – remarkable for the junior who is playing football this year for the first time since middle school. And in addition to Gerber’s single-game record for passing yards, his performance also helped him break the single-season record for passing yards as well.

Records aside, it was a simply dominating performance for the Mounties, who racked up a 581-79 advantage in yards, and also amassed 33 first downs in the game compared to just two for the Rangers.

“We’re certainly excited for the future but we really wanted to close out the regular season with a great game for our seniors,” said Eiswerth. “No matter who we get in the playoffs, this is more of a journey with these kids with quite a few freshmen and sophomores starting with just a few juniors and seniors sprinkled in.”

The Mounties scored on their first six possessions, and on nine of 10 possessions overall for the game. The only thing that stopped them was the half, and even then, they managed to get all the way down to the Northwest 2-yard line before Eli White was tackled just shy of the goal line as time expired in the first half.

As strong as South’s air attack has been not just on Friday but season long, its ground game hasn’t exactly taken a back seat as the Mounties had two 100-yard rushers on Friday. White ran for 142 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 12 carries, while Cade Lusk had 133 yards on 14 carries with a touchdown.

Lusk’s touchdown was South’s first of the game – a 16-yarder that capped an eight-play, 75-yard drive. Gerber then threw three straight touchdown passes on South’s next three drives – 11 yards to Butler, 42 to Butler and three yards to Caleb Johnson, the last of which put South up 28-0 on the first play of the second quarter.

White then punched it in from 10 yards out at the 8:05 mark of the second quarter to make it 35-0, and Gerber followed that up with his fourth touchdown pass of the night, this one to Neeko Bowen from six yards out at the 4:23 mark of the second quarter.

Gerber found Johnson for a 23-yard touchdown pass to cap a 10-play, 75-yard drive that took over seven minutes with the running clock on South’s first second half possession. He then hit Andrew Walter for a 10-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter, and then White notched his second score of the night on a 13-yard run late in the fourth quarter.

The Rangers managed to run just four plays all night on South’s side of the 50-yard line, and the furthest Northwest made it on the field was just the South 41-yard line. That came after Northwest’s biggest play of the night, a 24-yard reception by Noah Arnett, who made a nice catch to pick up the Rangers’ first first down of the night and advance his team from their own 35 to the South 41 late in the first quarter.

But White picked off Mason Bilby on the next play and South eventually cashed it into Johnson’s first touchdown of the game, which made it 28-0.

Shane Hempel returned the ensuing kickoff 31 yards to midfield, and the Rangers ran two plays in South territory before punting. Northwest would get just one more first down the remainder of the game, which came on a 12-yard carry on first down by Hempel late in the third quarter, and wouldn’t reach South’s side of the field again.