Davyan Moore, Jason Petion come up big for Tigers in win over Cougars
2024 Berks football coverage
presented by UECU
(This story has been corrected to show that Tristin McFarland returned an interception for a touchdown.)
By Clay Oberholtzer — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
The Fleetwood Tigers impacted the game in all three phases Friday in their season-opener at Kutztown.
An interception returned for a touchdown, a kickoff return touchdown, and an offense that moved up and down the field with ease led to a 48-12 non-league rout.
Sophomore Davyan Moore found the end zone twice. He dazzled with a 41-yard touchdown run and opened the second half with an 83-yard kickoff return.
The two-way player found himself flashing all over the place. A dasher with the ball in his hands. A ballhawk on defense.
Despite the success in each area, third-year Fleetwood coach Steve Pangburn emphasized that his team has things to clean up.
“I focus on what we’ve got to get better at,” he said, “(that’s) just getting off the field. (They had) a lot of third downs, just long grinding drives, and we can’t have the (three) turnovers (we had). It’s not going to work moving forward.”
The Tigers’ defense struggled to get off the field on third and fourth downs. They picked themselves up with three interceptions — including a Pick-Six from McFarland in the final seconds of the first half — and a fumble recovery.
The back of their defense was exposed often with deep shots intended for the Cougars’ Colten Mathias. It seemed no matter what coverage the Tigers used on the converted quarterback Mathias had his way on every ball thrown his way.
As for the offense there was no stopping the Tigers. As they ran up and down the field it looked like a track meet.
“I saw my line was doing great blocking,” said Tigers running back Jason Petion, who rushed for 178 yards and a TD on seven carries. “All I’ve got to do is depend on the line. No running back is great without their line. They make the cuts, I cut in. Once I see green grass, I take it.”
“We kind of knew where their gaps were on defense,” said Pangburn. “They started out in an odd front then moved to an even. To be honest with you, our guys have very good vision. We were controlling the line of scrimmage.”
The Tigers conducted a run-heavy offense. Of their 30 plays, they ran 27 times.
“It’s kind of how the game went,” Pangburn said. “Unfortunately we threw some early interceptions. Everything is in the flow of the game. Had we hit on some of those early passes, we might’ve changed.”
Pangburn’s goal was to control the line of scrimmage, and the Tigers’ stout offensive line achieved that. They averaged 13.9 yards per carry. Plays were wide open no matter where they decided to run it.
Despite the success on special teams and the running game, Pangburn knows the Tigers still have work. They only threw the ball three times; two were intercepted.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Fleetwood | 13 | 8 | 14 | 13 | 48 |
| Kutztown | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 12 |
Scoring summary
| 1 | Fleetwood | Moore, 4 run (Cappellano kick) | 9:11 |
| 1 | Kutztown | Mathias, 15 pass from Stoess (kick failed) | 4:28 |
| 1 | Fleetwood | McFarland, 33 run (kick failed) | 2:06 |
| 2 | Fleetwood | McFarland, 20 interception (Domenech run) | 0:19 |
| 3 | Fleetwood | Moore, 83 kick return (Cappellano kick) | 11:45 |
| 3 | Fleetwood | Domenech, 6 run (Cappellano kick) | 4:40 |
| 4 | Fleetwood | Hare, 6 run (Cappellano kick) | 9:38 |
| 4 | Kutztown | Stoess, 2 run (run failed) | 4:16 |
| 4 | Fleetwood | Petion, 53 run (kick failed) | 2:53 |
Team statistics
| Fleetwood | Kutztown | |
| First downs | 14 | 13 |
| Rushes-yards | 27-377 | 42-157 |
| Passing yards | 5 | 90 |
| Total yards | 382 | 247 |
| Passes | 1-3-2 | 6-16-3 |
| Fumbles-lost | 0-0 | 2-1 |
| Punts-average | 1-30 | 1-31 |
| Penalties-yards | 5-35 | 2-25 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Fleetwood: Petion 7-178, McFarland 6-74, Moore 2-71, Domenech 8-35, Killian 2-18, Hare 1-6, Team 1-(-5).
Kutztown: Bahr Jr. 10-65, Sherry 12-52, Swoyer 10-24, Mathias 2-11, Stoess 3-5, Bates 1-3, Fitzsimmons 1-2, Walters 3-(-5).
PASSING
Fleetwood: Domenech 1-3-2–5.
Kutztown: Stoess 6-15-3–90, Mathias 0-1-0–0.
RECEIVING
Fleetwood: McFarland 1-5.
Kutztown: Mathias 5-90, Walters 1-0.
INTERCEPTIONS
Fleetwood: Moore, McFarland, Adams.
Kutztown: Walters, Mathias.
