Wyomissing runs all over state-ranked Pottsville to reach 2-0
By Mitch Rupert — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
POTTSVILLE — Barely two minutes had elapsed in the second half Friday when Pottsville coach Tom McGeoy called his first timeout. It was a critical moment for the Crimson Tide. Wyomissing had just converted a third-and-6 with a 20-yard run and was just 20 yards from going up three scores.
McGeoy was trying to rally his defense, but it didn’t work.
Wyomissing scored four plays later. And in the next 90 seconds the Spartans added two more touchdowns after Pottsville turnovers.
And just that quickly, a matchup of state-ranked teams turned into a rout. Returning PIAA Class 3A runner-up and third-ranked Wyomissing amassed nearly 300 yards rushing. Pottsville, ranked No. 10 in Class 5A, turned the ball over four times and was held to 171 yards.
Wyomissing left Veterans Memorial Stadium with a 42-14 win to move to 2-0.
“I said to them at halftime, ‘We have to get the next score,” Wyomissing coach Bob Wolfrum said. “We get the next score and they have to come back three. If they get the next score, it’s a ballgame.”
Not only did Wyomissing get the next score to go up 21-0, it got the one after that. And then the one after that.
It seemed like it happened in the blink of an eye. In reality, it took only 1 minute, 28 seconds of game time to turn a brutally physical high school football game into a rout.
It happened for two reasons: First, Pottsville’s defense had no answer for Wyomissing’s big offensive line. Second, the Crimson Tide was careless with the football, throwing a pair of interceptions and losing a pair of fumbles.
Three of those turnovers led to Spartan touchdowns. The combination of a Wyomissing offense which ripped off runs at better than 6 yards a clip on designed running plays and consistent short fields led to Pottsville constantly playing with its back to the wall.
That’s why McGeoy called what amounted to a basketball timeout just 150 seconds into the second half. He needed something to stop Wyomissing’s momentum or else the Tide was going to be staring at a deficit not many teams in the state would be able to overcome.
“Our offensive line is very physical and very good and they get the job done almost every time,” said Wyomissing halfback Drew Eisenhower. “They love to pound away. We’re Wyomissing. We run the ball. That’s just what we do.”
Consider this: The Spartans’ Wing-T offense had just six of its 51 rushes go for negative yardage. Two of them were on sacks of quarterback Ben Zechman. Another came on a low punt snap which led to a 12-yard loss.
Conversely, Pottsville had six runs which lost yardage on less than half as many carries. The Crimson Tide ran for just 93 yards on 23 carries, 50 of which came on a third-quarter touchdown run. But from its smallest lineman to its biggest, Wyomissing didn’t just open up seams for its bevy of ballcarriers, it opened up gaps which could fit two lanes of Interstate traffic.
“It’s all about angles,” Spartans center Julian Dimaio said. “It’s what we get told every day. It’s all about angles and we got them all day.”
“They executed,” Wolfrum said. “I can’t say for sure why it opened up like it did. We did a lot of off-balance stuff. We were jumping our tackles and (Pottsville’s defense) was running around. When you get them running around, they’re not in their normal position and they’re worried about just getting lined up (correctly).”
That kind of blocking opened the door for the Spartans to rip off eight runs of 8 yards or more on its first scoring drive. That included a 20-yard run by Eisenhower after a holding penalty negated a Tommy Grabowski touchdown run and put Wyomissing in a second-and-18 situation.
Grabowski capped that 12-play drive with the first of his two 1-yard touchdown runs. Two plays later, Eisenhower jumped a pass route in the flat and came down with the first of two Wyomissing interceptions.
The Spartans needed just five plays to go 28 yards as Charlie McIntyre scored from the 1. On the critical third-quarter drive, Wyomissing ripped off three more runs of 8 yards or better on a 59-yard scoring drive which finished with the second of Grabowski’s touchdown runs.
Then the first of two fumbles by Pottsville quarterback Jazce Carabello-Snowell gave Wyomissing the ball at the Tide 19. Ja-mhi Jackson rumbled into the end zone on the first play following the fumble.
The Spartans needed two plays to score after Pottsville’s next turnover with Amory Thompson running in from 5 yards out. At that point, Wyomissing had scored as many touchdowns in the third quarter (three) as Pottsville had run offensive plays (three).
Wyomissing’s five touchdown drives averaged just 43 yards, and it was that much only because its opening touchdown drive covered 81 yards bridging the first and second quarters.
“I think anyone feels more dangerous with a short field,” Eisenhower said. “You don’t get winded driving the length of the field. You’re fresh and you’re right there. A couple nice plays and you’re in.”
“As an offensive line, I don’t think we took a step back at all,” DiMaio said. “I think we were moving forward all night. We drove it up and down the field all night.”
That wasn’t something Wolfrum had expected from Friday night’s game. He’s used to the ferociously physical brand of football the two teams usually engage in. Even coming into the matchup of state-ranked teams he never could have expected Wyomissing would move the ball as well as it did to score as much as it did against the quality caliber of team it played.
But he saw a pair of textbook drives in the first half. He saw an offense which capitalized on its opponent’s mistakes in the second half. And he walked out of Veterans Memorial Stadium with a win whose quality is going to ring throughout the Commonwealth this weekend.
“You know, you can throw the ball for 300 yards and not win a game,” Wolfrum said. “But if you run the ball for 300 yards, it’s hard to lose a game. We weren’t going 40 yards at a shot, either. We were getting 6 or 8 yards and moving it. And that’s time that they don’t have the ball. It’s demoralizing to a team when you run the ball like that.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Wyomissing | 0 | 14 | 21 | 7 | 42 |
| Pottsville | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 14 |
Scoring summary
| Team | Player | Play | From | PAT Player | Extra Point |
| Wyomissing | Tommy Grabowski | 1 run | Ian Levering | ||
| Wyomissing | Charlie McIntyre | 1 run | Ian Levering | ||
| Wyomissing | Tommy Grabowski | 1 run | Ian Levering | ||
| Wyomissing | Ja-Mhi Jackson | 19 run | Ian Levering | ||
| Wyomissing | Amory Thompson | 5 run | Ian Levering | ||
| Pottsville | Travontai Davis | 50 run | Raeff Dicello | ||
| Pottsville | Zach Ott | 6 pass | Tejay Allen | Tejay Allen | |
| Wyomissing | Charlie McIntyre | 81 kick return | Ian Levering | ||
Team statistics
| Wyomissing | Pottsville | |
| First downs | 18 | 7 |
| Rushes-yards | 51-275 | 23-93 |
| Passing yards | 28 | 78 |
| Total yards | 303 | 171 |
| Passes | 3-6-0 | 6-12-2 |
| Fumbles-lost | 0-0 | 3-2 |
| Punts-average | 1-38.0 | 3-32.0 |
| Penalties-yards | 2-17 | 1-5 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Wyomissing: Grabowski 16-109, Eisenhower 10-63, Thompson 9-45, McIntyre 6-30, Ja-mhi Jackson 4-38, R. Jones 1-13, Delp 1-3, Nierdrowski 1-(-1), Team, 1-(-12), Zechman 1-(-13).
Pottsville: Davis, 8-64, Dunn 2-15, Carabello-Snowell 8-11, McFarland 2-5, Dicello 1-4, Team 2-(-6).
PASSING
Wyomissing: Zechman 2-5-0–24, Hyde 1-1-0–4.
Pottsville: Carabello-Snowell 4-10-2–62, Allen 2-2-0–16
RECEIVING
Wyomissing: Thompson 1-24, Brower 1-4, Grabowski 1-0.
Pottsville: Dicello 2-30, Adamick 1-36, Englert 1-10, Ott 1-6, Davis 1-(-4).
Interceptions
Wyomissing: Drew Eisenhower, Charlie McIntyre.