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Not much had gone right for Williamsport in Friday night's first half on the road at Berwick. The Millionaires were staring at potentially going down by seven with under 90 seconds to play in the second quarter.
Berwick had a fourth-and-goal at the 1 and given the way the Bulldogs had been able to run the ball so far, it was a safe bet they'd score. But Williamsport's defense stood tall, stuffing Brock Simms just inches short of the goal line.
A few plays later, Tevin Williams marked his return in a big way, throwing a 74-yard touchdown pass to Zion Hughes as Williamsport rolled Berwick, 28-0.
"We just didn’t want to let them get it. We knew they were going to try running up the middle because why not? You've got one yard left. We all just stayed composed, did our job, and rallied to the ball, and that helped us," Williamsport defensive captain Anthony Manley said.
It wasn't just one Millionaire that stepped on that critical goal-line stand. Rather the entire Williamsport defensive front surged, pushing the line of scrimmage back towards Simms. Simms bounced off the scrum and dove forward, only to come up inches short.
And Williams, the do-it-all quarterback who had a superb start to the season before missing four weeks with a kidney illness, settled back into the game in a big way on the ensuing drive.
With Williamsport needing to go 99 yards and a few feet more to get into the end zone with 1:20 remaining on the clock and two timeouts, he scrambled for two first downs on the first two plays to get the Millionaires out of the shadow of the end zone. Then a keen observation by Zion Hughes -- who served admirably as the team's starting quarterback in Williams' absence and was back at tailback Friday night -- created the biggest offensive play in the game.
Hughes noticed that Berwick was not paying attention to him on passing downs and informed the Williamsport staff that he should be wide open on a wheel route out of the backfield. Sure enough, Williams climbed up in the pocket, the entire defense sucked towards the line of scrimmage, and Hughes was left all alone streaking down the right sideline. Williams found him, and Hughes scampered in with 20 seconds left in the half, completely changing the trajectory of the football game just plays after it looked like Berwick may take a late first-half lead.
"The O-line did great. I had plenty of time to be able to read every single route, and I saw on the backside that Kason (Ulmer) was open.,” Williams said. “As I was going to throw the ball, I saw Zion farther down the field, more open, and then just let it fly and trusted him. He caught it and did his job running to the end zone.”
Williams, who started off a bit rusty in the passing game before catching fire in the second half, looked like the player that had been dominant through the first three weeks of the season. He tallied four total touchdowns, and was simply dazzling in the open field, making defender after defender miss.
"He was rusty, but he should be rusty, it’s the first time he saw game speed in a month. So hopefully, the next two games, he can knock some of that rust off so we can kind of hit the ground running in the playoffs," Millionaire coach Kevin Brown said.
The running game, which never got a chance to get into a rhythm in the first half as Berwick controlled time of possession and held Williamsport to just 17 offensive snaps, was dominant in the third quarter. Hughes routinely found room off the left side, and Williams pulled a few read options and gained chunks of yards himself. By the time Williamsport scored two touchdown drives on their first two drives of the second half, short passes from Williams to Trey Damschroder and Kason Ulmer, making a comeback felt like an unreachable summit for a Berwick team that was really starting to struggle to move the ball.
And when Williams kept a zone read play and jogged into the end zone in the early fourth quarter to put Williamsport up 28-0.