With Pierce Mason back in form, Hamburg races past Upper Dauphin

By Mike Drago Last updated Nov 6, 2022

Hamburg's Pierce Mason breaks free for a touchdown against Upper Dauphin. (Tim Macrina Photo)

Matt Hoffert knew Pierce Mason was ready for a breakout game when the Hamburg tailback said before practice earlier in the week that his ailing ankle felt so good he didn’t think he needed to tape it up.

“‘I feel like myself right now,” Mason told his head coach.

Mason sure looked like himself Friday night in Hamburg’s District 3 Class 3A quarterfinal against Upper Dauphin. He was getting to the edge, once again showed his breakaway burst and displayed the power to bust through tackle after tackle.

“Pierce is a monster when he runs,” said Hawks lineman Charles Sheppard. “Last week I saw him pick it up a lot. I knew today he was gonna pop off, and he did.”

Mason showed no signs of an ankle injury that slowed him throughout the second half of the season as he scored four touchdowns and ran for 268 yards to help the fourth-seeded Hawks hold off fifth-seeded Upper Dauphin 49-35 on Hawk Hill.

Mason’s fourth score — his program-record 25th of the season — with 1:16 left clinched the win and sent the Hawks (9-2) to Wyomissing next Saturday afternoon for a semifinal match-up with the top-seeded and unbeaten Spartans.

Hamburg needed every one of Mason’s yards to get there. His third TD, a 56-yard sprint around the left corner, put the Hawks up 35-14 deep in the third quarter.

“I made one cut, saw the block (from Sheppard), and took off down the sideline,” Mason said, “and it was six.”

The Hawks were in complete control, having posted five unanswered scores to erase an early 14-0 deficit.

They had done a good job to that point of containing Upper Dauphin’s tricky, Wing-T style offense and most of its wrinkles, but the Trojans kept coming at them.

Xander Menapace tries to pull away from an Upper Dauphin defender. (Tim Macrina Photo)

Upper Dauphin scored three touchdowns during a seven-minute stretch to pull within 42-35 with 6:37 left. It tried an onside kick but the ball went out of bounds, setting the Hawks up with prime field position at the Upper Dauphin 48.

“(We knew) we’ve gotta score, and we did,” said Sheppard. “There’s no way they were gonna beat us.”

Mason covered those 48 yards on the first play of the drive, taking off around left end and sprinting down the sideline — but the score was nullified by a holding penalty.

The Hawks went back to work and ended up running down most of the clock. They faced a fourth-and-5 at the Upper Dauphin 43 with 4:46 left but the Trojans jumped offside.

That gave Mason a chance for four more carries and to add another 34 yards to his monster night; the last of those touches resulted in an 8-yard touchdown.

“It was (a) huge (possession), and everyone knew it,” Mason said. “The whole time we were saying, ‘Let’s punch it in, let’s finish it and get this win.’ When you have a team so motivated (like this), it’s hard to stop.”

Indeed, the Hawks were tough to stop. The highest-scoring team in program history went for 376 yards on the ground and a whopping 517 total yards. They topped 40 points for the eighth time this season.

Quarterback Xander Menapace was on the money all night, completing 13-of-17 passes (with two drops) for 141 yards. His biggest, and best, throw capped the opening drive of the second half and gave the Hawks the lead for good.

He lofted a pass to the corner of the end zone where Ty Werley made a leaping grab for a 27-yard TD and 21-14 lead.

Mason followed with a pair of third-quarter TD runs and Derek Ruiz pushed the lead to 42-21 when he busted off a 62-yard scoring run in the final minute of the quarter.

Mason scored 16 touchdowns in Hamburg’s first four games before injuring his ankle in Week 5 against Kutztown. He missed a showdown of state-ranked teams, against eventual Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 5 champ Lancaster Catholic, the following week and wasn’t effective for the next several weeks.

He started to regain his groove last week against Columbia when he rushed for 104 yards and scored a pair of TDs, playing less than three quarters.

Mason tied a program record with 292 yards in Week 3 against Eastern York and went for 277 the next week against Annville-Cleona. He now owns three of the top five rushing performances in Hamburg history and is the only player in program history with three 200-yard games in the same season.

He’s at 1,300 yards for the season, 13 away from the program record Diohnny Ruiz set last season.

The Hawks trailed 14-0 less than 10 minutes into the game but Mason wouldn’t let them give up. He kept pushing his teammates to stay in the game. With him back in form they knew they had a chance to come back.

“(He brings) confidence to this team,” said Hoffert. “They know (when) he has the ball he’s going to do something with it.”

Hamburg’s Charles Sheppard wraps up quarterback Aidan Bingaman. (Tim Macrina Photo)

	1	2	3	4	Final
Upper Dauphin	14	0	7	14	35
Hamburg	7	7	28	7	49

Scoring summary

1	Upper Dauphin	B. Snyder, 3 run (Engle, pass from Bingaman)	5:31
1	Upper Dauphin	Hepler, 1 run (kick failed)	2:12
1	Hamburg	Menapace, 4 run (Blatt kick)	0:54
2	Hamburg	Mason, 22 run (Blatt kick)	5:40
3	Hamburg	Werley, 27 pass from Menapace (Blatt kick)	7:52
3	Hamburg	Mason, 11 run (Blatt kick)	5:39
3	Hamburg	Mason, 56 run (Blatt kick)	4:36
3	Upper Dauphin	Mace, 4 pass from Morgan (Dyer kick)	1:19
3	Hamburg	Ruiz, 62 run (Blatt kick)	0:33
4	Upper Dauphin	Mace, 4 pass from Bingaman (Dyer kick)	11:18
4	Upper Dauphin	Bingaman, 11 run (Dyer kick)	6:37
4	Hamburg	Mason, 8 run (Blatt kick)	1:16

Team statistics

	Upper Dauphin	Hamburg
First downs	23	24
Rushes-yards	42-203	41-376
Passing yards	172	141
Total yards	375	517
Passes	13-31-1	13-17-1
Fumbles-lost	1-0	1-0
Punts-average	5-38.4	3-29.7
Penalties-yards	12-92	6-44