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Lycoming dominates Juniata in a 42-7 home football win

By Jon Gerardi 8 min read

Juniata had just put together a lengthy 12-play drive that ate up some time and put the Eagles just outside the red zone. The Eagles had a quick pass on third down to pick up seven and make it a fourth-down attempt. Lycoming's defense smothered the receiver on the catch and forced a turnover on downs.

After that lengthy drive, the Warriors wanted to respond and they did so in an enormous way. On second-and-5 from their on 29, Lycoming quarterback Joe Lyons hit Jared Zimmerman across the middle near midfield.

Zimmerman got wrapped up by a defender and taken down, only Zimmerman never had any part of his body touch the ground. The Lycoming receiver kept moving, got up and dashed the remaining 50 yards untouched for a 71-yard touchdown, squashing any momentum Juniata may have built on its last 12-play possession.

That touchdown for Lycoming was part of a string of successful Lycoming drives where the Warriors scored points on seven out of nine possessions as Lycoming dominated start to finish over the Eagles in a 42-7 Landmark Conference win.

The victory moved the Warriors to 4-3 overall and kept them undefeated in the Landmark Conference at 3-0.

"He's good and he knows it. I don't meant that he's arrogant. But man, he plays with tremendous confidence. I mean the touchdown play? What great awareness and he's working with a little bit of an injury too," Lycoming coach Mike Clark said. "I haven't seen the whole league but I'd say this: there's not three better wide receivers in our conference than Jared Zimmerman."

Zimmerman had a monster game for the Warriors, catching three passes for 106 yards and a touchdown. He was part of an offense that was putting up yards and points at a fast pace. Lycoming collected 505 yards of total offense in the win and had eight drives on Saturday that went for 35 or more yards.

"Our challenge this season was to put a whole complete game. Jared Zimmerman is only receiver who's not a freshman. He did a good job stepping up this year and also holding them guys to a hold standard," Lycoming running back Terrence Oliver said. "I hold the line to a high standard, they hold me to a high standard. That's our challenge moving forward and I feel we have a good shot at becoming that perfect offense."

That offense put together a nearly perfect game.

On the ground, the Warriors ran for 261 yards as 96 came from Oliver on 21 carries and a touchdown, Lamar Wilson ran for 59 yards on just two attempts and had a touchdown, and Spencer Ferguson carried it five times for 51 yards.

In the air, Lyons finished the day 12 of 21 for 217 and had two touchdown passes while Jason Lajara came in late and went 4 for 4 for 27 yards and a touchdown.

"Super solid, very steady. Early in the year he maybe forced some things, but I think now that we're getting back Jared, who is playing at a super high level, couple of the freshmen receivers have kind of figured it out. David Grayton was hurt today, but Isaiah Robinson, Wesley Horsman, both really solid kids," Clark said. "Isaiah Johnson had a big catch today, we got Brendan (Clark) back, which is a 6-foot-5 target. I think all of that, when everyone still wants to stop Terrence Oliver.

"It's really hard to stop Terrence Oliver and cover all of our guys if we stay whole," Clark continued. "It's exciting. I think the combination of our skill guys, but you need a quarterback to make it go and Joe's done a really nice job."

Lycoming had nine players catch a ball. Zimmerman was one of three players with three receptions as Horsman caught three balls for 38 yards and Clark, a Loyalsock graduate, had three for 36. Isaiah Robinson caught a pair of passes for 43 yards.

The first Lycoming possession got to the 14, but Lycoming came up empty handed after a missed field goal. But Lycoming responded with a field goal on its next possession before punting it away on its third with a 3-0 lead.

"Gotta score touchdowns (early), we gotta finish drives. I give them credit, they played really good red zone defense and they're well-coached. I don't want to say they were like bend-but-don't-break, but they made it really hard," Clark said. "We had a ton of success running the football, we thought we could come out and do it again and they made it a little harder. Credit to them for doing that."

Lycoming scored twice in the second quarter to go into the break up 17-0. Ferguson caught a three-yard touchdown from Lyons with 13:43 left until the break and then Zimmerman caught his 71-yard score with 7:38 to play.

The third quarter saw Vasco Granitto boot two field goals, one being a 31-yarder and the second one being a career-long 46-yard field goal with 39 seconds left.

"It's nice that we hae a kicker that's capable of making a 46-yard field goal with windy conditions. It was nice to see hey we're at the 30 and we can actually make this. I would have rather a couple touchdowns, but the ones we didn't get points on, we ended with a field goal attempt," Clark said. "Scoring matters. And not to go back to beginning of the year, but the first drive of the year against Montclair (State), we went for a fourth-down play, didn't get it and they took over and end up losing that game by a couple points.

"I love to score touchdowns, it's a statement if you score a touchdown, but there's also something to be said about getting points, because when they were struggling on offense, every score matters," Clark said. "So they just kind of add up. It was good."

Defensively, the Warriors played well limiting Juniata. The Eagles didn't score until their final possession of the game with the result already determined.

Excluding Juniata's final drive which went for 82 yards on nine plays and a touchdown, Juniata had just two drives out of its other 12 go for more than 50 yards, both of those coming in the second quarter. Lycoming also forced Juniata to punt it away five times, came up with two drive-ending sacks, forced an interception and recovered a fumble.

"They were aggressive and we stopped them on some fourth downs, which was important. Clearly had they made some of those, it could have been a different dynamic. I give our defense a lot of credit, Mark DeLucia, Coach (Steve) Wiser, our defensive coaches all do an excellent job in developing a good plan," Clark said. "We played without one of our starting corners, played without one of our best defensive players in Daniel Atsou. I think all things considered, the guys did a really good job."

In the fourth quarter, Oliver punched in a touchdown from five yards out with 14:00 to play to give the Warriors 30-0 lead. With 8:55 left, it was Jersey Shore graduate Elijah Jordan catching a five-yard touchdown pass from Lajara for a 36-0 lead.

Lycoming's final points came when Lamar Wilson broke a 59-yard run with 3:52 left for a 42-0 lead.

Oliver prides himself in being a standout running back and knows teams try to limit the running game, which Juniata wasn't able to do on Saturday.

"It's no surprise that teams are going to slow the run," Oliver said. "Lyco's running game has been dominant since even before I got here. So it's no surprise everyone wants to stop the run."

Trinity Hill-Caleb and George Hartwick IV both collected a sack on Saturday and Lycoming's Saveion Beckett and Mark Rosario combined or a sack. Louie Shank of Lycoming also recorded an interception.

Lycoming 42, Juniata 7

Juniata 0 0 0 7 -- 7

Lycoming 3 14 6 19 -- 42

First quarter

L--Vasco Granitto 20 field goal, 7:28.

Second quarter

L--Spencer Ferguson 3 pass from Joe Lyons (Granitto kick), 13:43.

L--Jared Zimmerman 71 pass from Lyons (Granitto kick), 7:38.

Third quarter

L--Granitto 31 field goal, 8:45.

L--Granitto 46 field goal, 0:39.

Fourth quarter

L--Terrence Olliver 5 run (Granitto kick), 14:00.

L--Elijah Jordan 5 pass from Jason Lajara (kick missed), 8:55.

L--Lamar Wilson 59 run (kick missed), 3:52.

J--Isaiah Hufstutler 6 pass from Ethan Eisenberg (Cody Paige kick), 0:34.

TEAM STATISTICS

J L

First downs 17 19

Rushes-yards 31-56 39-261

Passing yards 179 244

C-A-I 26-38-1 16-25-0

Total yards 235 505

Fumbles-lost 1-1 2-1

Penalties-yards 2-20 10-67

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING--Juniata, Ivan Foreman 11-44, Daiquan Buck 10-31, Alex Eaton 4-13, Ethan Eisenberg 1-(minus 3), Daniel Smith 1-(minus 3), Zachary Grande 4-(minus 26). Lycoming, Terrence Oliver 21-96 TD, Lamar Wilson 2-59 TD, Spencer Ferguson 5-51, Jason Lajara 4-28, Joe Lyons 3-14, Joseph Benjamin 1-9, Elijah Jordan 3-4.

PASSING--Juniata, Zachary Grande 18-26-1 104, Ethan Eisenberg 8-12-1 75 TD. Lycoming, Joe Lyons 12-21-0 217 2 TDs, Jason Lajara 4-4-0 27 TD.

RECEIVING--Juniata, Brysen Delaney 5-52, Kyle Lamb 3-39, Charles Landis 3-35, Kyeir Hankerson 2-18, Carter Marr 4-15, Daniel Smith 2-12, Alex Eaton 1-9, Isaiah Huffstutler 2-7 TD, Nick Rice 2-5, Akari Daniels 1-(minus 1), Dalvin Wheeler 1-(minus 12). Lycoming, Jared Zimmerman 3-106 TD, Isaiah Robinson 2-43, Wesley Horsman 3-38, Brendan Clark 3-36, Isaiah Johnson 1-14, Mekhi Bass 1-5, Elijah Jordan 1-5 TD, Spencer Ferguson 1-3 TD, Colin Giel 1-(minus 2).

SACKS--Lycoming, Trinity Hill-Caleb 1, George Hartwick IV 1, Saveion Beckett 1/2, Mark Rosario 1/2.

INTERCEPTIONS--Lycoming, Louie Shank 1.

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