Mustangs’ long win streak snapped in opening-night loss to Spring-Ford
By John McCafferty — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
In a new era for Gov. Mifflin, which was tasked with replacing 18 starters – including the Gatorade national player of the year Nick Singleton – a heavy crowd sat in anticipation to see this new revamped team for their home opener.
The rebuild will take some time.
Spring-Ford quarterback Matt Zollers passed for three touchdowns to lead the Rams to a 21-10 non-league victory over the Mustangs Friday night at Shillington.
After a slow start the young Mifflin offense was able to get things going after starting quarterback Delsin McNeil bulldozed his way in for a TD to get the Mustangs on the board early.
With big shoes to fill in the backfield it was fullback Brayden Reis who became the offensive spark plug for the Mustangs throughout the night.
“Right now, our main focus is that we need to drive the ball down the field in the backfield,” Reis said. “We know we lost Nick Singleton and we do not have that drive anymore, we lost our fullbacks, we have a whole new line basically and we are just trying to keep our momentum up. We need to execute our plays better, just focus on improving each play.”
Reis’s bruising style of running helped him break loose for runs of 31 and 42. Mixed with the shifty Ayden Martin and dual threat quarterback Delsin McNeil, the Mustangs look like they will continue to have a strong running attack going forward.
Despite strong efforts from the ground game, Zollers proved to be too much for the Mustangs defense, tallying three touchdowns through the air.
With many new faces in the Mustangs starting lineup, growing pains are expected. Still, the Mustangs know what they are capable of and are eager to bounce back.
“We have a lot to build off,” said Mifflin coach Jeff Lang. “We had 20 new kids starting tonight for the first time in a varsity football game. The first series showed we could not even line up in the right formation.
“All week everything is great, we are clicking, no issues, and you just get lost out of the first series. Then we settled in and I thought our kids played them very tough in the first half.
“Then we came out in the second half and offensively we could not keep it going. We started losing it up front; they won the battle in the trenches on both sides of the ball.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Spring-Ford | 7 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 21 |
| Gov. Mifflin | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
Scoring summary
| 1 | Spring-Ford | Z. Zollers, 64 pass from M. Zollers (kick) | |
| 1 | Gov. Mifflin | D. McNeil, 2 run (Schools kick) | |
| 2 | Gov. Mifflin | Schools, 22 FG | |
| 2 | Spring-Ford | Z. Zollers, 13 pass from M. Zollers (kick) | |
| 3 | Spring-Ford | Swanger, 33 pass from M. Zoller (kick) |
Team statistics
| Spring-Ford | Gov. Mifflin | |
| First downs | 14 | 8 |
| Rushes-yards | 24-135 | 38-226 |
| Passing yards | 244 | 20 |
| Total yards | 379 | 246 |
| Passes | 14-27-0 | 2-4-0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 0-0 | 2-1 |
| Punts-average | 36.0 | 42.0 |
| Penalties-yards | 6-35 | 9-70 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Spring-Ford: Fish 20-117, Wellons 1-7, M. Zollers 2-7, Swanger 1-4. Gov. Mifflin: Reis 12-124, D. McNeil 8-41, Martin 7-31, B. Jones 9-30, Huber 1-2.
PASSING
Spring-Ford: M. Zollers 14-27-0-244. Gov. Mifflin: D. McNeil 2-4-0-20.
RECEIVING
Spring-Ford: Z. Zollers 7-147, Scott 2-19, Swanger 1-33, Bendowski 1-17, Kerchner 1-15, Fish 1-9, Abdelrahman 1-4. Gov. Mifflin: Martin 1-14, G. McNeil 1-6.