Unbeaten Bears pull out all the stops to hold off Raiders in Section 3 shootout
Elizabethtown coach Keith Stokes claimed to have no qualms going for it on fourth-and-5 from his own 19, his team trailing Twin Valley midway through the third quarter Friday night.
His quarterback? He was not quite as comfortable with the idea.
“That was pretty gutsy,” admitted senior Josh Rudy, “but he trusts our offense.”
And for good reason. No one has stopped the Bears yet this season and Raiders sure couldn’t. They surrendered over 500 yards in a wild 47-42 Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3 loss to Elizabethtown at Twin Valley Stadium.
The Raiders (1-1, 3-2) were dangerous on offense, themselves: They cranked out 19 first downs and 392 total yards and kept pace with the league’s top-rated offense in what ended up as the second-highest scoring game in program history.
The Raiders had their moments on defense, too. They picked off Rudy on the Bears’ first possession — his first interception of the season, and first of two in the game — and forced a punt on their second.
That punt — Elizabethtown’s only of the night — turned out to be a turning point as it caromed off the leg of return man Evan Johnson for a fumble that kept Rudy and the Bears offense on the field.
Two plays later Rudy heaved the ball downfield for a 47-yard gain to Breault, setting up their first score and launching what would become a 317-yard performance.
“We had plays throughout the game that cost us,” said Raiders coach Brett Myers.
The other costly ones came on defense.
The first, the fourth-down pass, was made to look routine by Rudy as he connected with Breault for an 8-yard gain.
A few plays later the league’s top-rated passer burned the Raiders with a screen pass that covered 63 yards, setting up the third of Logan Lentz’s four touchdown runs — this one giving Elizabethtown the lead for good at 32-28 two minutes shy of the fourth quarter.
The Bears’ defense wasn’t exactly stout. It forced just one punt and allowed Johnson, bullish Jaydon Goebel and the other backs to gash them for 212 yards on the ground.
It did come up with a game-changing stop, turning back Johnson on fourth-and-goal from the 3.
A couple plays later Rudy found himself dropping back in the end zone on third-and-8, facing a stiff rush, then unleashing what became an 88-yard catch-and-run by Braden Cummings, who zig-zagged his way to the 2, refusing to go down.
“He didn’t blink, did he?” Stokes said of his quarterback. “We practice for those moments. You can’t be nervous when the play comes your way. You’ve gotta be there to make the play, and our guys showed up and made the play.”
“Coach has faith in me and Braden,” Rudy said. “I was a little hesitant at first, because I knew they were coming. It worked out.”
That was part of a five-catch, 229-yard night by Cummings, who had 10 touchdown catches in the first four games though strangely none Friday. He was about the only guy who didn’t find his way to the end zone.
“We’ve got a good group right now,” said Stokes, in his first season as head coach. “Lentz can pound the ball; (Rudy’s) throwing well. (Cummings), you better find someone that can cover that boy.”
Evan Myers, the Twin Valley quarterback, passed for 180 yards and ran for three scores and Goebel crashed over for a pair of late 1-yard TD runs as the Raiders kept the pressure on all the way.
They pulled within 40-36 with 5:37 left on Goebel’s first score, set up by a 74-yard kickoff return by freshman Drew Engle.
They just couldn’t stop the Bears, who reached the end zone on each of their four second-half possessions.
“You’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” Brett Myers said of Elizabethtown. “(Lentz) is a good running back. Everybody wants to talk about the quarterback and the receivers, and they made a ton of plays. But as you saw, (Lentz) carried the load for them. Give him credit.”
Lentz carried 25 times for 126 yards and scored on runs of 1, 16, 5 and 2 yards.
Myers was not disappointed by the effort. His offensive line executed well, his backs ran hard and his quarterback made good decisions with the ball.
His young team — which saw a coaching change in early July, less than two months before the start of the season — went head to head with a team that’s battling Exeter and Solanco for the top spot in the District 3 Class 5A power ratings.
“Our kids played really hard,” Myers said. “As a teacher and a coach, you want your students to work really hard and our guys are working hard and they played hard tonight. We just didn’t make some plays and we ran out of time. If this game was still going on we’d both still be scoring.”
Stokes acted as though going for it deep in his own territory was no big deal. Had the Raiders stopped them they would’ve been able to take a two-possession lead into halftime, a cushion they didn’t enjoy all night.
“If you believe in your guys to get it done, it’ll be done,” Stokes said. “No worries. I saw something they gave up. We called a play and made it happen.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Elizabethtown | 6 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 47 |
| Twin Valley | 14 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 42 |
Scoring summary
| 1 | Twin Valley | Myers, 19 run (Frey kick) | 7:37 |
| 1 | Elizabethtown | Rudy, 2 run (kick failed) | 3:55 |
| 1 | Twin Valley | Johnson, 11 run (Frey kick) | :06 |
| 2 | Elizabethtown | Lentz, 1 run (pass failed) | 10:50 |
| 2 | Elizabethtown | Lentz, 16 run (kick failed) | :37 |
| 3 | Twin Valley | Myers, 2 run (Frey kick) | 9:57 |
| 3 | Elizabethtown | Capello, 37 run (Fuge kick) | 6:42 |
| 3 | Twin Valley | Myers, 4 run (Frey kick) | 5:30 |
| 3 | Elizabethtown | Lentz, 5 run (Fuge kick) | 1:47 |
| 4 | Elizabethtown | Lentz, 2 run (Capello, pass from Rudy) | 6:54 |
| 4 | Twin Valley | Goebel, 1 run (Olson, pass from Goebel) | 5:57 |
| 4 | Elizabethtown | Capello, 4 run (Fuge kick) | 2:35 |
| 4 | Twin Valley | Goebel, 1 run (run failed) | 1:16 |
Team statistics
| Elizabethtown | Twin Valley | |
| First downs | 18 | 19 |
| Rushes-yards | 38-220 | 37-212 |
| Passing yards | 317 | 180 |
| Total yards | 537 | 392 |
| Passes | 13-17-2 | 7-13-1 |
| Fumbles-lost | 0-0 | 1-1 |
| Punts-average | 1-46.0 | 1-33.0 |
| Penalties-yards | 8-51 | 3-25 |
Individual statistics
RUSHING
Elizabethtown: Lentz 25-126, Capello 7-62, Rudy 6-32.
Twin Valley: Johnson 13-84, Goebel 12-75, Myers 8-36, Engle 4-17.
PASSING
Elizabethtown: Rudy 13-17-2–317.
Twin Valley: Myers 7-13-1–180.
RECEIVING
Elizabethtown: Cummings 5-229, Breault 4-66, Capello 3-16, Brosey 1-6.
Twin Valley: Zolty 3-113, Johnson 2-14, Pinciotti 1-48, Spiri 1-5.
INTERCEPTIONS
Elizabethtown: Breault.
Twin Valley: Harris, Spiri.