Bobcats Down Bulldogs In Great, Hard Fought “Meaningless” Game (10/09/16)
There was much excitement leading up to Friday’s (October 7th) game between Clarion and Redbank Valley, at Memorial Stadium: the Bobcats Homecoming Game; undefeated Clarion clinches their sixth KSAC Small School title in seven years, with a victory; last year’s Champion, Redbank Valley keeps in the hunt for the title with a win.
(Photo courtesy of Forest Madison Mills and Kelsey Wolf) Ryley McMaster running the ball
Then about midweek, all that changed and only one of those situations remained, it was still going to be Clarion’s homecoming game, as the KSAC announced, six weeks into the season, that Clarion was now in the Large School Division, had been since before the season, unbeknownst to more than one coach, AD and the area media, by virtue of the PIAA’s classification restructuring, which moved Clarion with little change in male student population, to Class AA. With Clarion out of the mix, Redbank Valley was out of any title hopes as Clarion-Limestone had, in fact, clinched several weeks earlier.
Thus the KSAC rendered this game absolutely “meaningless,”(but only so far as the KSAC Small School Championship is concerned).
MEANINGLESS? MEANINGLESS? MEANINGLESS MY FOOT!!!!
Some fine Bobcats to be proud of (L-R) Tom Wurster, Archer Mills, Colton Rapp and Spencer Miller
This is still Clarion – Redbank Valley. One of the top rivalries the Little 7-12/KSAC has ever known. There is too much pride on the line when these two great programs meet. Try to tell these two teams this game was meaningless. These programs that were started in the 1920’s, along with Union’s program, with the same coach, Walter Doverspike launching each team: New Bethlehem (later Redbank Valley) in 1922; Rimersburg (later Union) in 1925; and Clarion in 1927. We’re talking roughly ninety seasons and more here! Football in Clarion County and the Little 12/KSAC owes its existence to its football pioneer Walter Doverspike.
These three were charter members of the Little 7-12/KSAC, founded way back in 1951, sixty-six years ago. And there are only three schools that have been members of this conference for the entirety of its existence. Well who would that be? None other than Clarion-Redbank Valley-Union! Dare I say, there very well may be no KSAC except for these storied programs!
This game was anything but meaningless! Clarion and Redbank Valley have too much pride and too much admiration for themselves and each other, than to let an “executive decision” render this game meaningless! And Boy-oh-Boy, did they show it Friday night. Like so many of their contests in the past, this one went down to the wire.
The Bobcats opened the scoring, at the six minute mark of the first quarter, on a 30 yard run by Colton Rapp, who would rack up 175 yards on 23 carries. Archer Mills kicked the PAT and the Cats led 6-0.
(Photo galleries courtesy of Forest Madison Mills and Kelsey Wolf) Spencer Miller looking for a receiver
Clarion moved the lead to 14-0, at the 9:36 mark of the second, when quarterback Spencer Miller hit his favorite target Ty Burford with a thirty-two yard scoring strike followed by another successful kick by Mills. Miller was 8-for-15 for 137 yards and Burford had 3 catches for 115 yards.
Later, with the Bulldogs on the Clarion 15, defensive end Tom Wurster, who has been a flyswatter on opposition passes, intercepted a screen pass and returned it all the way to the Redbank 20. Wurster had his usual monster game on defense, with eight tackles, including four solo, four tackles for loss, the interception and a sack to end the game. Fellow defensive end Colt Stimmell also shined with fourteen tackles, six solo, with two of them for loss.
Two plays later, with 6:42 left before halftime, Rapp scored his second rushing touchdown of the evening, this time from 23 yards out. Mills was successful again and the Bobcat lead was now 21-0. Looks like the rout was on.
Not so fast, I did mention this was a Clarion-Redbank Valley game.
Redbank Valley scored two touchdowns in the last minute and forty-nine seconds of the half. First on a two yard run by Curtis Mohney and then on a one yard run by Clint Thurston, who had 75 yards on eleven carries. Thurston kicked the PAT after each and Clarion held a 14-7 lead at the half.
(Photo by Matt Buchanan) Homecoming queen and other girls on court: Forest Madison Mills, Lissie Lauer, Hannah Phillips (queen), Chelsea Mason, Emily Phillips. Escourts: Kent Peterson, Denon Simpson, Jimmy Smathers, Adam Bettwy, Leon Aristeguieta
Halftime saw Hannah Phillips crowned 2016 Homecoming queen.
The Bobcats received the second half kickoff and proceeded to march down the field, to the tune of 19 plays, eating up ten minutes and ten seconds of clock, playing good old Clarion grind it out football. Only one problem, the Cats didn’t score, stopped on downs on the Redbank eight.
The Bulldogs drove the other way and at 11:03 of the fourth, quarterback Keaton Kahle hit Jarod Kespelher with a two yard scoring pass. The Bobcats blocked the extra point, but Clarion’s lead had dwindled to one point, 21-20.
Rapp scored the game’s final points on a 50 yard run with 1:38 left in the game and combined with Mills fourth PAT, the final was set at 28-20.
Congratulations to both teams. With what transpired, earlier in the week, either one could have said this game is meaningless and laid down. Again too much pride in themselves and to much respect for each other and this great rivalry.
One last note on that respect and one that both schools should be proud of: After the game, I was gathering together the four young men that are in the CAT QUOTES section at the bottom of the article.
One of the young men was tied up with other media. The other three players and I were walking toward him. As we were walking, I pointed out Redbank Valley coach Ed Wasilowski, who was being interviewed about ten yards behind and to the right of us.
Now you have to realize the high esteem the Clarion players hold for Coach Larry Wiser for this make sense. I pointed at Coach Wasilowski and said guys, I want you to know, Coach Wasilowski is as classy a guy as Coach Wiser. One of the players said something like, “Well we need to go shake his hand.” This is after they already had the official handshakes at the game’s conclusion. Big and bold as you please, those three young men went over to Redbank’s Coach, who put the interview on hold for them as they exchanged congratulations.
When the other player learned what happened, he decides he has to go shake the coach’s hand also. Again, interview put on hold for the reporter. And in both instances not just “Good game,” “Good game,” but a decent amount of time exchanging pleasantries. Great show of sportsmanship all around.
Some stats not mentioned yet for Clarion: Kyle Patterson had eight tackles; Tyler Finefrock had six tackles, including one for loss; Ryley McMaster had 46 yards on four carries
For Redbank Valley: Colton Mohney had 140 yards on ten carries.
Clarion will travel to Karns City on Friday for what will now be a match-up that could decide the Big School Division.
CAT QUOTES:
Thomas Wurster: (To what he contributed his and the team’s fine play) “Just the brotherhood we have, man. That team bonding just really brought us together and pulled us through as a team. That’s pretty much it.”
Archer Mills: “It felt great (making all four extra points). We worked on it all week. Trying to get the timing down, the line to block how they’re supposed to. And putting it all together. It just works out.”
Colton Rapp: “That was like the perfect example of coming out and facing adversity. We really haven’t been faced with that much adversity before. But like Tommy said, ‘it goes back to that whole idea of being a brotherhood. Whenever it starts to get tough, we’re not going to turn away from each other. We’re going to start leaning on each other. It’s not always going to our way. We know that, but we’re going to rally together, play as a team. I mean eleven-as-one out there and just fight. That’s what we had to do tonight. We were fighting hard out there for those three-four-five yards, then we’d break one.
“Just all around that was an awesome game. An emotional game but an awesome game.
“It was fun lining up across from them. Seeing them, they put up a pretty good fight. The start of the game, I was starting to think ‘OK here we go. But they came back and they fought to the last play. To the last play they fought. You kind of expect that from a team like Redbank. They are going to come out and they are going to fight. If there is time on the clock, they are going to fight. That makes it a fun game. This is a game we’re going to remember.”
Spencer Miller: “They were really physical. But our line… they held the line, pass blocking. I had all kind of time to throw. Ty was catching them in traffic, he was catching them open. He was just making plays he had to. Colton was finding those holes and getting through them. I think when it comes to the end of the day, we just played harder.”
(On Tom Wurster’s defensive play): ” I mean, he’s something else. He’s been knocking down passes. He finally got his interception. I honestly thought he was going to take it (all the way for a touchdown). He’s quite the beast.”
Coach Larry Wiser: “6-and-0 now.”
(About KSAC ruling): “As a coach, what I told the kids, ‘the coach in me wants to win out the rest of the games. (To) the individual in me, it just doesn’t seem quite right.’ I’ll just leave it at that. As I told them, that’s something we have no control over. What we do is have control over what we do over the main part of the season.
“I was pretty pleased with how we got started with the game. They moved the ball a little bit, then we got the thing settled down. Tom’s interception, it was really nice getting the ball down there. We seemed to be very comfortable throwing the ball. We were obviously getting some great catches and good throws there.
“Then all the sudden it seems like you’re moving down the field and to Redbank’s credit, a lot of teams are down 21 points, sometimes they begin to wrinkle a little bit and to their credit they maintained a key drive coming up through there, getting the first touchdown.
“I’ll be critical of myself. We probably should have just ate the clock a little bit and ran the ball more, but I just had a lot of confidence in the passing game. We were just off a few inches here or there. Maybe we got too much pressure.
“Obviously, them coming down and scoring on that second drive. You could kind of see our kids kind of lost that momentum. And that’s tough. High school kids, you lose that momentum. Came in at halftime and tried to make our adjustments offensively and defensively. Come out the second half and have a nine minute and some second drive. We were scrapping every play. It was literally like a backyard brawl. I don’t know how many times we got it by just an inch or two, here or there. And I think all of us were disappointed when we didn’t get the ball in the end zone, getting down that far.
“Then they went up right away and scored, which seemed like we didn’t have an answer for some of the things they were trying to do on the inside.
“That fourth quarter, to our kids credit, they stepped it up. Blocking that extra point was key. Got the ball back with three or four, five minutes to go in the game. Got a couple of good first downs there. Then we decided to go with our bread and butter, running the inside stuff with Colton and the line. And he was able to get seven or eight yards here, nine yards here. And finally we just slipped it out a hole and blocked down and he took it for a touchdown.
“Hard fought battle. I’m sure we need to look at some things we did. And if we’re going to be the kind of team I hope we are, we’re going to correct those mistakes and come back out and start preparing for Karns City on Monday. Though they have to enjoy their dance tomorrow night and have fun doing that. They deserve it.
“I thought both of our ends, (Tom Wurster and Colt Stimmell) were pretty physical. Colt made three pretty good tackles right there.
“We did some really good things tonight.”
(When asked about his friendship and competition with Redbank Coach Wasilowski) “Absolutely. He’s been doing it a long time down there. He’s been very successful. He was part of Dave’s (former coach Dave Moore). It was one of your Clarion Redbank battles. I remember the five overtimes. I can remember the hurricane back in ’86, Ray Austin was the Clarion head coach then… It was 0-0. We tied Brockway and Redbank. Brockway had only one tie and won the conference championship.”
(Thanks to Matt Buchanan for this article and for the homecoming photo and to Forest Madison Mills and Kelsey Wolf for the action photos. Great job, Cats… and Dogs!!!!)