Ellwood finally gets over The Falls to earn playoff spot
Ellwood City (31) vs. Beaver Falls (28)
Written: Oct 22, 2011
By Joe Simon
New Castle News
People probably snickered when Don Phillips talked about making the Ellwood City Lincoln football team a force four years ago.
He took over a program in the midst of a 31-game losing streak. A once-proud program was the joke of the Midwestern Athletic Conference.
Nowadays, Phillips is the one laughing.
His Wolverines took another huge step toward becoming a power in the MAC by beating Beaver Falls, 31-28, last night. It was the first time Ellwood City (5-2, 6-2) beat the Tigers since 1995.
“We’ve been working very hard to get to that next level,” Phillips said. “Everybody knows when you talk about the MAC and (Class) AA, everybody says Aliquippa, Beaver, Beaver Falls, and then they stop. We’ve known all along, that if we play to our ability, and if we were going to become a good football team, we have to stand up to those teams and you have to match them, because if you don’t you’re going to stay in that middle echelon.”
The game was filled with big offensive plays, but it was the Ellwood City defense that was the difference-maker. It held Beaver Falls star running back Trey Hall, who came into the game ranked 11th in the WPIAL with 1,025 yards rushing, to 34 yards. It also forced four fumbles, recovering three of them, and made an interception.
Ellwood, which clinched a WPIAL Class AA playoff spot with the win, showed it wasn’t intimidated by jumping out to a 9-0 first-quarter lead. Scott Lewis booted a 26-yard field goal (a drive started by a Tigers’ fumble) and Kyle Crawford spun through two tackles for a 17-yard touchdown run. Beaver Falls (5-2, 6-2) responded with two TDs of its own to take a 14-9 lead into halftime.
Yet, right before the end of the half, the Wolverines found a hole in the Tigers’ defense when they were successful running a few plays up the middle with bruising full back Beau Ewing.
“They were starting to do some things where they were overplaying the perimeter, and we felt that because of the front they had gone into, there were some seams up there (in the middle),” Phillips said.
Ewing, who finished with 54 yards, bulldozed his way for a first down on the first three plays of the second half. And, with the Tigers looking for a run up the middle, Ellwood pitched the ball out to Crawford on the next play, and he raced 47 yards untouched for a touchdown and a 17-14 lead.
Beaver Falls quickly answered on a strange, 55-yard kickoff return in which the Tigers player who received the ball fumbled it, and it bounced right into the hands of Elijah Cottrill, who went down the sideline for a touchdown.
While the bounce went Beaver Falls’ way, this was Ellwood’s night. The Wolverines threw a pick on their next drive, but the Tigers missed a 37-yard field goal, and Ellwood responded with a spectacular 40-yard touchdown pass from Julian Cox to Crawford, who leaped high over a defender to pull in the catch. It was Cox’s only completion of the night, but the quarterback would be heard from again in a different way.
“I knew if I threw the ball in the air, Kyle would go get it,” said Cox, who ran for a team-high 116 yards. “That’s what great players do, they make big plays.”
The consistent running of Crawford, Ewing and Alexander Grymes led to Cox’s big day on the ground. The sophomore transfer from New Castle faked handoffs to them several times in the second half, and then ran the ball himself for big gains. He capped a 22-point third quarter with a 7-yard TD run to put Ellwood up, 31-21.
Beaver Falls made it 31-28 at the 2:49 mark of the fourth quarter with a TD pass from Wesley Nesmith to Alex Clark, their second of the night. The score occurred after Crawford and fellow defensive back Nick Polka ran into one another breaking up a pass and had to come out for a play because they were injured.
Their onside kick attempt was recovered by Ellwood, and while the Wolverines punted with 35 seconds left, Crawford’s kick landed at the 10-yard line, and the Tigers’ desperation drive fell short.
“Our seniors really pushed themselves tonight,” Phillips said. “This was their senior night, their last game on this field, and we wanted to make sure a lot of good things happened.”
Mission accomplished.
(Email: j_simon@ncnewsonline.com)
BEAVER FALLS ELLWOOD CITY
9 First downs 11
83 Yards Rushing 306
24 Yards Lost 15
59 Net Rushing 291
22 Passes Attempted 6
11 Passes Completed 1
1 Passes Intercepted 2
159 Yards Passing 40
218 Total Yards 331
4-3 Fumbles-Lost 2-0
3-33.6 Punts-Average 4-33.5
6-46 Penalties-Yards 7-65
BEAVER FALLS 0 14 0 14 — 28
ELLWOOD CITY 9 0 22 0 — 31
Scoring plays
ELLWOOD CITY — Scott Lewis, 26-yard field goal.
ELLWOOD CITY — Kyle Crawford, 17-yard run (kick failed).
BEAVER FALLS — Damian Rawl, 20-yard run (kick failed).
BEAVER FALLS — Alex Clark, 25-yard pass from Wesley Nesmith (Elijah Cottrill run).
ELLWOOD CITY — Crawford, 47-yard run (Crawford run).
BEAVER FALLS — Cottrill, 55-yard kickoff return (Evan Richards kick).
ELLWOOD CITY — Crawford, 40-yard pass from Julian Cox (Lewis kick).
ELLWOOD CITY — Cox, 7-yard run (Lewis kick).
BEAVER FALLS — Clark, 33-yard pass from Nesmith (Richards kick).
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