Bulldogs, Cougars have each absorbed tough hits on the way to championship game
The Harrisburg Cougars have just one loss this season but it was a bad one: 49-13 at Gov. Mifflin.
The Cougars were out-gained by more than 3-to-1, turned the ball over four times and left some receivers uncovered for easy touchdowns. A young team could have walked out of Mifflin Stadium demoralized. The opposite was true, said Cougars coach Calvin Everett.
“We actually felt really good,” he said.
Everett saw positive signs. He liked the way his guys, playing without their starting quarterback, Shawn Lee, hung tough. They had less than two days to prepare for the Mustangs’ Triple Option attack; the game was thrown together when both teams were left without an opponent due to mid-week COVID cancellations.
Harrisburg was down just a touchdown at halftime and was within 21-13 early in the third quarter after Kyle Williams broke off a big scoring play. It competed with Nick Singleton, limiting him to 55 first-half yards — 53 on one big scoring play.
Staring into the ashes of that loss Everett saw the makings of a good team — one that will play Wilson Saturday for the District 3 Class 6A championship in the GoBigRecruiting.com Game of the Week.
The Bulldogs have experienced their own phoenix-like rise from the ashes. They were 1-2 after consecutive one-sided losses to Mifflin and Exeter. No one in West Lawn was talking about championships at that point.
“An awful lot of things have to happen right,” Bulldogs coach Doug Dahms thought at the time, “starting with getting healthy and getting the mental attitude of the team adjusted — and having a little bit of luck.”
Everything has fallen into place for the fifth-seeded Bulldogs (9-3). They’ve won seven straight, developed a new ground-and-pound mentality and are coming off one of the best wins in program history — 14-11 over unbeaten and top-seeded Central York in the semifinals.
“Any time you lose there’s always a little bit of a crack in the armor,” Dahms said this week on the Mike Drago Sports Podcast. “There was some doubt amongst the kids. (I told them:) ‘There’s nothing to stop us from running the table.’ We just needed an attitude adjustment, and the schedule worked in our favor; our toughest league games (at Hempfield and against Manheim Township) were at the end.”
Once tailback Jadyn Jones returned from a two-game suspension and quarterback Brad Hoffman began to get healthy — he injured his knee in Week 2 against Gov. Mifflin and didn’t play the next week at Exeter — the Bulldogs began to morph into the team that will play for its eighth District 3 championship, and first since 2016.
Against Central York Hoffman rushed for 167 yards and Jones for 161. Wilson ran 69 plays — 62 on the ground. In the second half it controlled the ball for nearly 19 of 24 minutes, keeping All-State quarterback Beau Pribula on the sidelines for long stretches.
“Every team has a tendency to do (some) things better than others,” Dahms said. “It took us a while to find that. Our forte is: Let’s run the football.”
Hoffman is the first Wilson quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season; along with Jones, who has 1,264 yards, they are the first 1,000-yard duo in program history. Each has topped 100 yards in each of the last five games.
“They’re tough, they’re gonna grind it out, they’re gonna play good fundamental football,” Everett said of Wilson this week on the Mike Drago Sports Podcast. “They want to make it low-scoring, control the clock.”
The second-seeded Cougars (11-1) will confront that with a swift, effective defense that has allowed just six TDs over the last five games. They have recorded 45 sacks, intercepted 22 passes, and have 33 takeaways.
“They’re playing extremely well,” Everett said of his defense. “The stats don’t lie. We’re getting a lot of turnovers and sacks; the most important thing, we’re keeping people out of the end zone.”
Junior Terrell Reynolds, a 6-2, 245-pound defensive end, is the key figure on defense. He was named Mid-Penn Commonwealth Defensive Player of the Year after recording 19 1/2 sacks. Dahms compares him to former Cougars and Penn State lineman Damion Barber.
“He’s off the charts,” Dahms said.
The Cougars have all sorts of offensive weapons, led by all-league wide receiver Kyle Williams, a triple threat who lines up in the backfield and at receiver and takes back kicks.
“He can make you miss at the snap of a finger,” Everett said. “One move, he can take it to the house.”
“Williams is as good as we’ve seen,” Dahms said. “They’re gonna be a very tough out for us.”
The Cougars always are. They ended Wilson’s 2019 season 33-29 at Gurski Stadium in a district semifinal. Did the same a year earlier, rolling up a 30-point halftime lead in a 36-12 district semifinal.
The Bulldogs have had some long days at Harrisburg’s Severance Field, none worse than a 2007 semifinal that saw them miss four field goals and absorb some questionable calls in a 17-14 overtime loss.
That difficult loss, Dahms said, fueled Wilson for its 2008 state playoff run. He’s hoping the tough times earlier this season have steeled his team for another trip to the PIAA Tournament.
“You never sell a Bulldog short,” he reminded.
