No excuses from Gov. Mifflin: ‘Exeter outplayed us’

After a shaky start Gov. Mifflin regained control of the District 3 Class 5A championship game Friday, scoring on its first two possessions of the second half to take the lead. The Mustangs forced a field goal after the Eagles reached the 1 and led by four points with 11 minutes left.

They seemed to have all the momentum but even at that point Mustangs coach Jeff Lang didn’t feel comfortable.

“The whole game they pretty much outplayed us,” he said after Exeter prevailed 31-28, ending Mifflin’s perfect season.

The Eagles (10-3) controlled the game with their offensive line throughout, especially over the final 20 minutes when they allowed the Mustangs (10-1) to run just three plays.

Exeter gained possession with 7:35 left and rode out the clock, earning its first District 3 football championship and advancing to the PIAA semifinals.

“In the end, they just came and out-played us — out-played us and out-coached us last night,” Lang said. “They were more physical than us up front, they pushed us around the field. They played the kind of football we want to play.”

The Eagles did that from the opening of the game when Eric Nangle moved the chains and quarterback Colin Payne made some clutch throws during an eight-play drive that gave them a 7-0 lead.

In the fourth quarter the Mustangs couldn’t get them off the field. On its final two possessions Exeter wasn’t stopped. Nangle, who carried 40 times for 221 yards, busted off a 31-yard TD on fourth-and-1.

On the next series Payne completed a 5-yard pass to Joey Schlaffer on fourth-and-4 to keep the ball out of the hands of Nick Singleton and the Mustangs.

“They chewed the clock, they dominated the time of possession and field position and special teams,” Lang said. “They pretty much dominated us in all aspects of the game.”

The Eagles ran 68 plays to 29 for Mifflin, effectively limiting Nick Singleton’s touches. He finished with a season-low 40 yards on a season-low eight carries — just one in the second half.

Singleton scored two touchdowns — one on a 51-yard catch-and-run in the first quarter, one on a 2-yard run on what turned out to be the final official carry of his unparalleled high school career.

For most of the second half he was lined up as the middle receiver in a trips set, which Lang said forced Exeter out of its 5-3 defensive front and opened other things up.

Lang said he planned to move Singleton to tailback for the next series, but there was no next series.

“I thought we’d get the ball back, be able to go down and score — it never happened,” he said.

Singleton finished his record-breaking career with 6,326 yards and 116 TDs. For the season he had 2,059 yards and 44 TDs, in 11 games.

It turns out Singleton’s final carry, on a Jet Sweep, was nullified by a holding penalty. That was the beginning of the end for the Mustangs. That put them in a third-and-25 hole. Quarterback Delsin McNeil — in for Eden Johnson, who had come out of the previous defensive series with cramps — tried to pass on third down but ended up running for 13 yards.

“We had all the momentum, then (we made) some simple mistakes,” said Mifflin linebacker Trey Rock, “(things) likes flags, talking back and forth; we kind of got out of pocket a little bit and that hurt us. Little things hurt us in the end.”

The result was stunning, considering that Mifflin beat Exeter 54-21 in the regular season; the Mustangs scored the first 30 points of that game and it was never close.

“Maybe we were coming in a little cocky,” Rock suggested. “I never took them lightly; I knew what they have. I knew they got better throughout the season.”

“I was surprised,” Lang said. “I thought we’d be able to handle them a little bit more than we did, but up front they just dominated us.”