Kutztown comes up short against Long, Annville-Cleona

By Andrew Clauser— MikeDragoSports.com correspondent

Annville-Cleona coach Matt Gingrich had a feeling Kutztown was going to put everything it had into stopping the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s leading rusher, Phoenix Music.

Gingrich was correct as the Cougars limited Music to 75 yards on 20 carries.

The Dutchmen (2-1, 4-2) overcame that with big contributions from Alex Long and Cael Harter in a 42-28 Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 5 victory Friday night at Annville.

The Cougars (0-3, 1-5) out-gained the Dutchmen 431-285 in total yards. They also had the game’s top rusher in Brendan Ackley, who rushed for a career-high 213 yards on 18 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns, one from 70 yards.
Kutztown dominated in time of possession but was doomed by the big plays and led 14-7 late in the first quarter after Dakota Thomas’ 3-yard TD run. Thomas finished with 86 rushing yards.

Kutztown’s Jacob Lafferty scored in the final seconds of the first half to tie it 21-21.

“Leading up to this game we were warned about the potential for a trap game,” said Long. “Kutztown is better than its record and it showed tonight. We knew they would be tough and fight the whole night.”

Long gave the Dutchmen the lead on the opening play of the game, an 80-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

“I just ran up and took it, followed a great block, saw the middle and ran left to the endzone,” said Long, who finished with 155 all-purpose yards.

In the third quarter he gave Annville the lead for a good on a 75-yard touchdown catch.

“The play was designed to be a fade route for Cam (Connelly) but he drew double coverage from the safety leaving me open in the middle,” said Long.

Harter, a junior running back, had two big plays that contributed to the win. The first was a 21-yard touchdown catch from Gavin Keller. Later in the third, after Long’s touchdown reception, Harter returned a Cougars fumble on the kickoff for a touchdown, which put the game out of reach. 

Those two scores in 10 seconds were the difference. 

	1	2	3	4	Final
Annville-Cleona	7	14	14	7	42
Kutztown	14	7	0	7	28

Scoring summary

1	Annville-Cleona	Long, 80 kickoff return (Verhagen kick)	11:48
1	Kutztown	Ackley, 70 run (Stump kick)	11:34
1	Kutztown	Thomas, 3 run (Stump kick)	1:38
2	Annville-Cleona	Cael, 15 run (Verhagen kick)	9:58
2	Annville-Cleona	Shay, 21 pass (Verhagen kick)	5:04
2	Kutztown	Lafferty, 3 run (Stump kick)	11.3
3	Annville-Cleona	Long, 75 pass (Verhagen kick)	1:33
3	Annville-Cleona	Harter, fumble return (Verhagen kick)	1:23
4	Annville-Cleona	Funk, 7 run (Verhagen kick)	6:32
4	Kutztown	Ackley, 1 run (Stump kick)	2:51

Team statistics

	Annville-Cleona	Kutztown
First downs	11	16
Rushes-yards	39-189	57-382
Passing yards	96	49
Total yards	285	431
Passes	2-3-1	2-5
Fumbles-lost	0	1
Punts-average	1-43	1-30
Penalties-yards	6-41	8-45

Individual statistics

RUSHING

Annville-Cleona: Music 20-75, Harter 4-43, Keller 9-36, Funk 3-22, Shay 2-13, Long 1-0.

Kutztown: Ackley 18-213, Thomas 15-86, Lafferty 17-51, Gruber 3-29, Swoyer 4-3.

PASSING

Annville-Cleona: Keller 2-3-1-96.

Kutztown: Lafferty 2-5-0-49.

RECEIVING

Annville-Cleona: Long 1-75, Shay 1-21.

Kutztown: Thomas 1-32, E. Lafferty 1-17.

INTERCEPTIONS

Kutztown: Lafferty.