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A year ago, Williamsport's Zion Hughes watched his best friend Tevin Williams assume the role of starting quarterback after Hughes tore an ACL in the preseason. Hughes worked hard and overcame a spring setback, finding his way back to the football field this fall for his senior season.
And in poetic fashion, Williamsport's first home touchdown of the year involved Hughes and his best friend Williams.
Williams handed the ball off to Trey Damschroder in motion, Damschroder pitched it backwards to Hughes and Hughes found Williams in the flat. The rest was all Williams. The reigning Sun-Gazette Athlete of the Year made an impossible back-sideways juke upon catching the ball to make one miss, then made three more miss on the way to the end zone for a 54-yard touchdown as the big-play Millionaire offense rolled once again, beating Hazleton 49-21 to improve to 2-0.
"We've been practicing it all week. We made this play during the summertime when we were lifting. Michael Jackson came on, and we were listening to 'Billie Jean,' and we just thought of the play. The song was on, so that's just what we called the play," Williams said. "The play didn't work as well as we thought it was going to. The corner or the safety stayed over the top, so I realized that, and I dropped into a flat. Zion, he was a quarterback, so he read it, hit me on a flat, and once I had the ball in the open field, I just used my legs and did what I do."
Many in the crowd came, in part, to watch Williams, who had nearly 480 all-purpose yards and five touchdowns in last week's win over Wyoming Valley West. He did not disappoint, making history in the first 15 minutes of the game as he became the first Millionaire ever to have a passing, rushing and receiving touchdown in the same game.
He also intercepted a pass in that stretch too, showing why coaches from some of the nation's best college football programs are starting to check in on him. Williams will attend Saturday's Penn State home game against Marshall as an invited recruit of coach Matt Campbell and his staff.
"That's the type of athlete he is. He's very instinctual. Obviously, he's a gifted, gifted athlete, and I'm glad he's on our team," first-year Williamsport coach Kevin Brown said. "I'm just trying to coach him up and make him the most efficient quarterback we can make him. He still has a lot of things to learn, but when you're that talented, sometimes you can get away with some of your mistakes. But when he irons those mistakes out, he might be pretty good."
It was an emotional day for Brown in his first game as coach at Williamsport that is nearing the end of an eight-figure stadium renovation. Not only was it his first home game as coach at his alma mater, but the 1986 Eastern Conference championship team was also honored at halftime. Brown's late brother -- former Millionaire, Penn State and NFL star Gary Brown -- was a star player on that 1986 team.
“I probably had some emotions that people probably didn't understand with us honoring the '86 team and my older brother being on the team and him not being here anymore. The last time we did the celebration in '16, he was alive. So when I look up and see videos of him running and things like that, I got a little emotional,” Bron said. “It wasn't so much the game. It was just like, 'I miss my brother and I wish he was here.'”
There's no doubt that Brown and his new coaching staff has the Millionaire offense firing on all cylinders through two games. They have nearly 1,000 yards of total offense through the first two weeks, and a big change has been the offensive line. Star linebacker Anthony Manley has teamed up with Cordoza Minor and some other returning starters to improve the line significantly under the direction of new offensive line coach Keith McCabe. The Millionaires ran it at ten yards per carry for 280 total rushing yards and opened huge hole after huge hole.
"We knew we had potential, and big kudos to Keith McCabe. He's the assistant head coach. I think he's the best offensive line guy around here. I was with him my first time up here when I was the offensive coordinator. He was my offensive line coach, and he was priority number one when I got the job, to get him back on the hill. Like I said, he's the best around as far as I'm concerned," Brown said.
Hughes, who stepped into the tailback role and ran for his first touchdown in two years after the ACL on an untouched seven-yard scamper in the second quarter, is benefiting from that upgraded offensive line play. Hughes looks all the way back from the injury he suffered and showed great feet, patience and agility on Friday as he broke off chunk play after chunk play.
"I'm coming in with a chip on my shoulder every game. I make sure the other team's gonna feel me. That's one thing that I always take pride in, bro. I might not be the biggest running back. I might not be the fastest running back,” Hughes said. “I got hurt, and I know it's going to take more than one person to take me down because of my heart, my integrity and my grit.”
His touchdown run put Williamsport up 28-7 midway through the second quarter, but a great two-minute drive by Hazelton resulted in a touchdown pass from JJ Lantigua to Luis Guzman in the corner of the end zone with three second remaining in the half to keep Hazleton in the game going into the break. Williamsport quickly took control in the third quarter when they drove down into the red zone and Williams found his top target in Damschroder on a fantastic corner route for a 17-yard touchdown to go up 35-14.
A few plays later, Anthony Manley, who also had two sacks, jumped a pass in the flat and took it 33 yards to the house for a pick-six, the stellar linebacker's first of his high school career, to make it 42-14.
“I play linebacker and I saw like every time I blitzed, he tried to dump it out to the flat,” Manley said. “I play a lot of Madden and NCAA (football video games) and I learned how to lurk it. So I acted like I was gonna blitz, and as soon as I saw (the quarterback) flip his hips, I ran into the flat, and it was either I was taking him out or I was taking the ball, and I wanted that ball.”
Williamsport finished off their scoring for the night when Williams tiptoed the sideline from sixteen yards out to ice the game away with nine minutes remaining and put the Millionaires up 49-21. It was Williams' tenth all-purpose touchdown of the new season.