After loss to Upper Dauphin, Tigers must now wait and hope for playoff chance

Tanner Maddocks thought he had it.

His Fleetwood teammates did, too.

So did their head coach, Steve Beatty, who viewed the fourth-down play from across the field.

“I wasn’t happy with the spot,” he groused after seeing Maddocks ruled short on a critical run out of punt formation early in the first half, a play that started the beginning of the end for the Tigers in a 46-29 non-league loss to visiting Upper Dauphin Friday night.

The play came on the opening series of the second half, from Fleetwood’s 26. It’s an option out of punt formation that Maddocks, as good an all-around football talent as you’ll see, has at his disposal. It’s run as a rugby punt. If the Tigers’ quarterback/punter sees an opening and thinks he can make it, he goes.

He did, and he went.

“I just saw the lane and took it,” the Villanova recruit said of his sprint around right end. “I think I got it by at least 2 yards; my body crossed it. I don’t know what they (the officials) saw. I pulled up and cruised out of bounds, because I knew I had it.”

Maddocks was ruled out of bounds at the 27. Upper Dauphin (7-1) took over from there. Two plays later it was in the end zone, up 26-14 and with a working margin the Tigers (5-4) weren’t able to cut into.

The Trojans controlled the game with their efficient Wing-T style offense. Quarterback Wil Laskowski kept the Tigers guessing with his play-faking and his ability to pull the ball out and fire it downfield for short passing games. He’s also a deft runner who caused trouble with his feet.

Christian Snyder, who had a big game in a loss to the Tigers last season, had another one Friday, rushing for four touchdowns and 132 yards.

He, like Laskowski and the Trojans’ other backs, are tough to bring down and fight for every single yard. And they got lots of them — 490 total, 368 on the ground.

They had the Fleetwood defenders off-balanced the whole night, and when a Tigers defender did get them squared up they didn’t always make the tackle cleanly.

It was a frustrating night and played out as Beatty feared it might.

“They’re very efficient, they’re very disciplined,” he said of the Trojans. “They know what they’re doing and they do it well. They were a little more physical than I thought, to be honest with you.

“We didn’t tackle well today; I would’ve liked to have done a better job there. We didn’t fill some of our gaps like we’re supposed to. You have to stay disciplined with this team.

“I get it, the boys are aggressive football players; they’re trying to make a play. But some of them got caught out of assignment a few times.”

The Trojans went right down the field the first time they had it, and the second and third times, too.

Maddocks kept the Tigers in it throughout, scrambling out of danger to throw for 201 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but he seemed to be running uphill the whole night.

Upper Dauphin won it on both sides of the line and effectively took away what’s been a steady Fleetwood running game. Gavin Morris got just 41 yards on seven carries; the Tigers ran it just 19 times. That was in part because they weren’t moving the chains, and in part because the Trojans hogged the ball so well, running it 47 times.

The only highlights for the Fleetwood defense came after Upper Dauphin touchdowns; the Tigers were able to turn back five straight two-point conversion attempts. (The Trojans don’t have a kicker.) That, to a degree, helped keep them in the game.

They were down just 20-14 at the half and actually had a chance to take the lead into intermission. Maddocks was sacked on the next-to-last play of the half, pushing the ball back to the 22, and he was picked off at the pylon as time expired.

“It was more of a jump ball to that guy,” said Maddocks, who had no choice but to try to force the ball in there. “We weren’t on the same page. I’ll take (blame) for that. We didn’t communicate well before that. That leads to more mistakes.”

It was still a two-possession game with 9:49 left after Maddocks’ 1-yard run and his two-point conversion pass to Will Ryan. But the Trojans salted it away by answering with a six-minute scoring drive.

“They do a good job of holding that ball in the possession game,” said Maddocks, a cornerback. “It really limits out offense.”

A win over a quality opponent would’ve been big for the Tigers; it might have pushed them into the District 3 playoffs. Now they’ll have to beat Kutztown in their season finale next week and sweat it out, hoping for one of 14 spots in the Class 5A field.

“We’ll just watch and hope some things fall into place for us,” Maddocks said. “That’s all we can do. We only can control what we can control.”

	1	2	3	4	Final
Upper Dauphin	14	6	12	14	46
Fleetwood	7	7	7	8	29

Scoring summary

1	Upper Dauphin	Wiest, 24 pass from Laskowski (Laskowski run)	7:10
1	Fleetwood	Moyer, 47 pass from Maddocks (Maddocks kick)	3:38
1	Upper Dauphin	Snyder, 35 run (run failed)	0:45
2	Upper Dauphin	Walker, 2 run (run failed)	10:05
2	Fleetwood	Moyer, 26 pass from Maddocks (Maddocks kick)	7:04
3	Upper Dauphin	Snyder, 24 run (pass failed)	9:11
3	Upper Dauphin	Snyder, 1 run (run failed)	2:58
3	Fleetwood	Morris, 24 run (Maddocks kick)	2:27
4	Upper Dauphin	Hepler, 17 run (run failed)	11:32
4	Fleetwood	Maddocks, 1 run (Ryan, pass from Maddocks)	9:49
4	Upper Dauphin	Snyder, 8 run	2:53

Team statistics

	Upper Dauphin	Fleetwood
First downs	22	16
Rushes-yards	47-368	19-114
Passing yards	122	201
Total yards	490	315
Passes	7-10-0	11-24-2
Fumbles-lost	3-0	0-0
Punts-average	0-0	2-40.5
Penalties-yards	15-135	9-55

Individual statistics

RUSHING

Upper Dauphin: Snyder 20-132, Laskowski 9-70, Wiest 6-66, Hepler 6-65, Walker 3-23, Fetterhoff 2-7, Peterson 1-5.

Fleetwood: Maddocks 10-59, Morris 7-41, Moyer 2-14.

PASSING

Upper Dauphin: Laskowski 7-10-0–122.

Fleetwood: Maddocks 11-24-2–201.

RECEIVING

Upper Dauphin: Snyder 3-54, Wiest 2-41, Wentzel 1-14, Hepler 1-13.

Fleetwood:  Moyer 3-89, Morris 3-62, Ryan 3-39, Davis 2-11.

INTERCEPTIONS

Upper Dauphin: Laskowski 2.