Dominic Giuffre’s exhilarating, exhausting, record-setting performance carries Panthers to Frost Bowl win
Dominic Giuffre celebrated his first two Frost Bowl touchdowns Friday night with his Schuylkill Valley teammates. After the third one he was too tired to jump into anyone’s arms.
“I laid down in the end zone,” the junior tailback said. “I was gassed.”
A 96-yard touchdown run — longer, really, considering the zigs and zigs it took to reach the end zone — will do that to you.
The second-longest touchdown run in program history was the highlight of Giuffre’s record-setting night in leading the Panthers over Hamburg 41-34 in a Frost Bowl shootout at Hawk Hill.
There were many other Giuffre highlights during a four-touchdown, 302-yard rushing performance that sent the Panthers (5-0, 6-2) to their sixth straight win and kept them on a collision course with Lancaster Catholic for the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 5 title.
The run from the shadow of his own end zone into the Hawks’ end zone, which put his team up 24-6 late in the first half, displayed all of Giuffre’s skills: The vision, the patience, the moves and the determination.
“He has heart to play,” said Panthers lineman Christian Davila, who sprung a number of the blocks that helped Giuffre smash the program record for rushing yards in a game, 261 yards, by Matt Young in 2006.
The Panthers needed every one of those yards, too, as the Hawks (3-2, 6-2) overcame a sluggish start and a gang of mistakes to keep the heat on.
Hamburg, which trailed by 21 points at halftime, and again after three periods, got a Pierce Mason touchdown run with 44 seconds left to make it a one-possession game. They forced the Panthers to recover an onside kick to preserve a victory that never seemed threatened, at least not until that final minute.
The Panthers recovered that last kick, then went into victory formation — and then into a wild and prolonged celebration.
“We haven’t (beaten them) since our eighth-grade year, and I’m just really proud right now,” said Davila after Schuylkill Valley snapped Hamburg’s three-game winning streak in the heated series.
Despite what the scoreboard showed Schuylkill Valley’s defense was just as big a key to its win as Giuffre’s big runs.
The Panthers kept Mason under wraps most of the way, allowed just two first-half first downs and forced the Hawks to punt four times in the opening half.
Even bigger, they forced Hamburg to settle for early field goals after the Hawks opened drives at the Schuylkill Valley 24 — following a 14-yard punt return by Daniel Brady — and then at the 5, after Brady’s 83-yard kickoff return.
Mason finished with 73 yards but half of that came on his final carry, in the final minute, with the Panthers dropping back into pass coverage after Xander Menapace started airing it out.
Mason, who carried the offense the first half of the season before an ankle injury, didn’t seem to have the same explosion he showed before the injury. He netted just 1 yard on his first three carries and the Hawks seemed to sink a little after that, realizing their star back wasn’t able to carry them.
Plus, the Panthers were all over him; he rarely had room to run.
“Stopping Pierce was our biggest goal tonight,” said Davila, a defensive tackle who keyed a run defense that yielded just 93 yards. “We knew he was going to be a big challenge for us, but we locked him down.”
What the Hawks got offensively came in the short passing game, with Menapace hitting 18-of-31 passes for 184 yards — but there could’ve been a lot more. The Hawks dropped several passes, including at least one that couldn’t gone for a touchdown.
The Panthers, meanwhile, didn’t miss a beat. They set the tone by opening with a 13-play drive that ended with the first of two Noah Wamsher field goals. They never relinquished that 3-0 lead.
“Our goal was to keep the chains moving and keep their offense off the field,” said Schuylkill Valley coach Bruce Harbach, whose team ran 61 plays, 45 on the ground.
Giuffe had the majority of those — 27 carries — and took four to the house, scoring from the 9 in the first quarter, from 63 yards in the second and from 33 in the third.
One week after going for a career-best 202 yards he topped that in the first half, when he had 212 yards.
“Our run game did a great job and Dom’s a great part of that,” said quarterback Michael Goad. “He’s done a great job for us (and) the O-line’s done a great job, allowing him to be him, to open up those holes so he can make his cuts.”
Giuffre agreed.
“All the credit goes to the linemen,” he said. “I couldn’t get it done without them.”
His 63-yard, tackle-busting burst up the middle gave the Panthers some working margin, pushing their lead to 17-3 early in the second quarter.
Late in the opening half he swung even more momentum to his sideline when he took a toss around left end, tight-roped up the sideline, cut back at the Hamburg 33, paused to direct his downfield blocker — quarterback Matt Nawrocki — then crossed to the other side of the field to complete his exhilarating, exhausting run.
“There was a guy in front of me, so I decided to run outside and go all the way up the sideline,” Giuffre explained. “I was getting chased down, so I cut back inside, and I waved our quarterback to set a block, and I scored.”
“Every time he breaks another one,” said Goad, ” it blows my mind again.”
You want mind-blowing? How about Schuylkill Valley being in position to win the first championship in program history?
It’s two wins away from that goal, next week against Annville-Cleona, then Lancaster Catholic — Harbach’s former team — in the regular season finale.
Who saw that coming after the Panthers opened the season 0-2?
“I was thinking it’s gonna be a long season if we keep playing like this,” Davila said, reflecting back. “After the third week we really stepped it up and came to play.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Schuylkill Valley | 10 | 17 | 14 | 0 | 41 |
| Hamburg | 0 | 6 | 14 | 14 | 34 |
Scoring summary
| 1 | Schuylkill Valley | Wamsher, 35 FG | 6:22 |
| 1 | Schuylkill Valley | Giuffre, 9 run (Wamsher kick) | 3:36 |
| 2 | Hamburg | Blatt, 29 FG | 10:18 |
| 2 | Schuylkill Valley | Giuffre, 63 run (Wamsher kick) | 8:34 |
| 2 | Hamburg | Blatt, 25 FG | 6:31 |
| 2 | Schuylkill Valley | Giuffre, 96 run (Wamsher kick) | 2:00 |
| 2 | Schuylkill Valley | Wamsher, 43 FG | 0:00 |
| 3 | Hamburg | Menapace, 1 run (Blatt kick) | 9:04 |
| 3 | Schuylkill Valley | Lackner, 19 pass from Nawrocki (Wamsher kick) | 8:00 |
| 3 | Hamburg | Correll, 3 pass from Menapace (Blatt kick) | 5:03 |
| 3 | Schuylkill Valley | Giuffre, 33 run (Wamsher kick) | 1:21 |
| 4 | Hamburg | Semmel, 12 pass from Menapace (Blatt kick) | 11:54 |
| 4 | Hamburg | Mason, 36 run (Blatt kick) | 0:44 |
Team statistics
| Schuylkill Valley | Hamburg | |
| First downs | 20 | 14 |
| Rushes-yards | 45-364 | 26-93 |
| Passing yards | 66 | 185 |
| Total yards | 430 | 278 |
| Passes | 9-16-0 | 18-31-0 |
| Fumbles-lost | 2-1 | 1-0 |
| Punts-average | 2-33.0 | 4-40.7 |
| Penalties-yards | 3-25 | 10-75 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Schuylkill Valley: Giuffre 27-302, Nawrocki 4-21, Hohenadel 5-19, Goad 5-14, Stelutti 4-8.
Hamburg: Mason 10-73, Menapace 12-33, Moore 2-1, Team 2-(-14).
PASSING
Schuylkill Valley: Goad 5-9-0–18, Nawrocki 4-6-0–48, Team 0-1.
Hamburg: Menapace 18-31-0–185.
RECEIVING
Schuylkill Valley: Lackner 3-28, Hohenadel 3-18, Lackner 1-24, Crills 1-(-2), Giuffre 1-(-2).
Hamburg: Correll 4-30, Werley 3-32, Mason 3-30, McFarland 3-23, Bentz 2-20, Semmell 2-13, Moore 1-37.
MISSED FIELD GOALS
Hamburg: Wamsher 37.
