Lancers clinch playoff berth with victory
Neshannock (35) vs. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (14)
Written: Oct 13, 2012
By Joe Sager
New Castle News
CORAOPOLIS — There weren’t any mousetraps or big pieces of cheese to be found for the Neshannock High football team this week.
However, last night’s WPIAL Class A Big Seven Conference encounter against Our Lady of the Sacred Heart could have been considered a “trap game” for the Lancers.
After all, Neshannock was coming off last week’s emotional 28-21 loss at Rochester for the conference’s top spot, while the Chargers have resided in the basement of the standings all season.
The Lancers shook off a slow start and a lull late in the fray to blow out OLSH, 47-14, at Robert Morris University’s Joe Walton Stadium.
The triumph clinched a WPIAL Class A playoff berth for Neshannock (6-1 conference, 6-1 overall), its first since 2004.
“We’re happy about the playoff spot,” Neshannock coach Fred Mozzocio said. “But, at the same time, we have some work to do on our end, some cleaning up to do.”
Lancers sophomore Eli Owens ran for 233 yards and three touchdowns to help spark the team.
“We started out slow. We just didn’t execute like we should have,” he said. “The linemen did great. They executed and blocked for me. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have had any holes at all. They gave me some room to run.
“We are just glad to be in the playoffs. I think we can have a good team if we keep executing and playing as a team.”
Things didn’t start so well for Neshannock as it turned the ball over on downs on its first possession and fumbled it away on the next two.
“We tried to be intense at practice all week. I thought we had some good practices. We talked about taking care of the football and not being a charitable organization and turning the ball over and things like that,” Mozzocio said. “What do we do? We come out and gave them the ball a few times early. It wasn’t a good start. I didn’t think we were going to be flat, but our performance spoke for itself in the first half.”
The Lancers finally got some momentum in the second quarter when Owens scored his first touchdown on a 4-yard run. Ernie Burkes connected with Alex Welker on a 54-yard TD pass and later had his own 5-yard scoring jaunt to give Neshannock a 21-0 halftime edge.
Owens reached paydirt on a 5-yard scamper to boost the Lancers’ lead to 27 early in the third and it appeared they’d cruise to the win.
However, OLSH (1-6, 1-6) fought back with a pair of touchdowns early in the fourth quarter on the Cameron Johnson to Nick Metz connection, the second going for 94 yards. It brought the Chargers within 27-14 with more than six minutes left in the game.
“Give some credit to OLSH. Their kids came out and played hard for four quarters. They didn’t back down. They came out and attacked us. They came to play a football game,” Mozzocio said. “That’s something, at times, we still have to remember. Now, we have a bull’s-eye on our back and these other teams are going to come after us hard and we have to be ready to play football no matter who it is.”
That long score jolted the Lancers, who retaliated with three touchdowns in the final 5:56. Burkes took a quarterback keeper 70 yards to the house, while Owens and Robert Lindsey added a pair of 27-yard scoring dashes to put the game out of reach.
“It definitely woke us up. We came out bad,” Owens said. “We needed a wakeup call and they gave us one.”
(Email: ncsports@ncnewsonline.com)
NESHANNOCK OLSH
19 First downs 10
394 Yards Rushing 107
8 Yards Lost 48
386 Net Rushing 59
13 Passes Attempted 16
9 Passes Completed 9
0 Passes Intercepted 0
145 Yards Passing 215
531 Total Yards 274
3-2 Fumbles-Lost 4-2
0-0 Punts-Average 4-23.5
10-138 Penalties-Yards 8-58
NESHANNOCK 0 21 6 20 — 47
OLSH 0 0 0 14 — 14
Scoring plays
NESHANNOCK — Eli Owens, 4-yard run (Connor Richards kick).
NESHANNOCK — Alex Welker, 54-yard pass from Ernie Burkes (Richards kick).
NESHANNOCK — Burkes, 5-yard run (Richards kick).
NESHANNOCK — Owens, 5-yard run (kick blocked).
OLSH — Nick Mertz, 7-yard pass from Cameron Johnson (Adam LaCaria kick).
OLSH — Mertz, 94-yard pass from Johnson (LaCaria kick).
NESHANNOCK — Burkes, 70-yard run (kick failed).
NESHANNOCK — Owens, 27-yard run (Richards kick).
NESHANNOCK — Robert Lindsey, 27-yard run (Richards kick).
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