Bobcats Down Panthers, Coach Wiser One Win Away From 200 (09/17/16)

The Clarion Bobcats traveled to Knox on Friday (September 16th) to face the Keystone Panthers and came away with a 69-8 win, Coach Larry Wiser’s 199th.

Bobcat offensive lineman/linebacker Zack Bauer after the Keystone game

After three games, the undefeated Bobcats have outscored their opponents 141-8, with a big match-up against the also 3-0, Clarion-Limestone Lions, coming up at Memorial Stadium on Friday night (September 24th).

The Cats held a 25-13 edge in first downs and a 363 – minus 13 yards rushing and a 540 – 142 advantage in total yardage.

The Bobcats opened the scoring, at 9:33 of the first quarter, when junior quarterback Spencer Miller carried the ball in from twenty-two yards out, for a 6-0 lead. Then at the 4:58 mark Colton Rapp scored his first of two touchdowns on the night, also on a 22 yard run, at with 4:58 left in the quarter, upping the lead to 12-0. Rapp ran fourteen times for 132 yards.

The Panthers made it look interesting when quarterback Nate Wingard hit receiver Kyle Kapp with a beautiful 60 yard touchdown pass, with 3:06 left in the quarter. Wingard then hooked up with Tanner Wilson, for the two-point conversion, cutting the Bobcats’ lead to 12-8. Wingard, only a junior looked very good, completing 10 of 18 passes for 155 yards.

With thirty-eight seconds left in the quarter, Michael McCloskey found paydirt, with a two yard run. Miller hit Ty Burford for the two-point conversion, giving the Cats a 20-8 lead.

Clarion’s next two scores came on big hookups by Miller, who was 7 of 10 on the night, and Burford. The first was a 32 yarder, at 11:23 of the second quarter (followed by a pass completion from the duo for the conversion) and the second at 5:03 of the second, went for thirty-six yards. The score was now 34-8. Burford had three receptions on the evening, for 102 yards.

While the Bobcats’ smothering defense was keeping the Panthers in check, the offensive line was outstanding, giving Miller all kinds of time in the pocket and asserting their will, just exploding off the ball and driving the defense down field on run plays.

Miller connected for another long touchdown pass, a thirty-two yard strike at 3:o6 in the second, this time to big tight end Thomas Wurster. Archer Mills kicked the PAT and the Cats led 41-8. Miller connected on his last of four touchdown passes, an eight yarder to a diving Dominic Fleming, Clarion’s other tight end, with 40 seconds left in the half. Mills’ kick was good, moving the score to 48-8.

With a running clock in the second half, the Bobcats worked on the running game quite a bit. Rapp’s second touchdown on the night came on a two yard run, with 5:49 left in the third. Mills kick was good and the lead was 55-8. Sterling Conner had a nice 29 yard run for a score, with forty-five seconds left in the stanza. The kick was good and it was 62-8.

Sam Minich had a one yard run for a score with 7:24 left in the game and Mills connected on his fifth PAT of the game, setting the 69-8 final.

Some of the Bobcats other key highlights and statistics: Logan Minich – 3 carries for 36 yards; Brendan Zerfoss – 46 yard run in the middle of the fourth quarter; Josh Vanek- 10 tackles; Kyle Patterson – 6 tackles and a blocked punt; Sam Minich – 4 tackles; Colt Stimmell – 5 tackles and a recovery of a blocked punt; Archer Mills – 43 yard interception return from the goal line.

Coach Wiser will go for career win number 200 in Friday’s match-up against Clarion-Limestone. With both teams at 3-0 and C-L hoping to put the Bobcats celebration on hold, the match-up between these two long time rivals will create a lot of excitement. Expect C-L to have a huge number of fans at the game.

Let’s have a great turn out of Bobcat fans, especially as many of coach Wiser’s former players, assistant coaches and staff as can possibly make the game. And let’s have a big “Spirit Line” for the Cats to run through leading up to the game, to cheer our Bobcats on to victory.

(Just how big is 200 coaching victories? This is the “Holy Grail” of coaching stats in Pennsylvania High School Football. In the history of high school football in the state, which dates back to at least 1887, if not before, there have been only eighty-seven coaches accomplish the feat [as of the beginning of this season].

Only three District Nine coaches have done it: Coach Tim Janocko, from Clearfield, who just recorded number 250 on Friday, Coach Paul Simco, former Coudersport Coach, who retired with 204 wins and the late Harry E. Clarke, a “Founding Father” of the Little7-12/KSAC, who coached at Reynoldsville and Reynoldsville/Sykesville among other schools. Coach Clarke had 221 wins, 73 of them in District Nine.

These three men along with Coach Wiser are all in the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches (PSFCA) Hall of Fame. When Coach Wiser achieves this mark, it will be a testament not only to himself but also to every player to wear the Orange and Black under him and everyone associated with the program.)

CAT QUOTES:

Defensive Coordinator, Lee Weber: “I know the kids were a little disappointed giving up a touchdown. One of their goals was to try to get three consecutive games with a goose egg on the scoreboard. But unfortunately we ran into each other and our two guys fell down and they made a nice catch and score. That’s just the way it goes. Sometimes you take a risk and that time it didn’t work out for us. But overall, again our defense played a pretty solid game.

“We didn’t give up much on the ground. We gave up some short stuff, but we adjusted. Sometimes it is better to give a little bit and not break, instead of taking too many chances.

“They didn’t get a chance to get anything up the middle, so they were forced to throw. We just pin our ears back with our ends, linebackers and secondary guys. Did a lot of running, because they threw all the time. It tested our conditioning there, in that sense. But overall, the secondary guys did a nice job.

“I’m impressed with (Keystone quarterback Nate Wingard), seeing him. He’s elusive too. It’s not easy to get to him. He has a nice arm, tall, lean. So, I think he has a bright future.”

(On the offense) “Our line is continuing to push people back. It was four or five yards before our running backs were getting touched. It makes it a lot easier to rush, when you don’t get touched till four or five yards past the line of scrimmage. I thought they did a great job picking up some of their blitzes. They ran a five front. They’ve been running a four three. So it was a change-up on us and we adjusted nicely, to open up some holes for our running backs. And our running backs ran hard. Colton, Mike McCloskey  and Kyle Patterson, they all did a nice job in there. We’re doing a better job of reading our blocks and making the right cuts. Hopefully we’ll continue next week, in a big game against our arch rivals, C-L, who is also now 3 and 0. So it’s nice to get that rivalry back.”

Offensive Lineman/Linebacker, Zack Bauer: (On the line’s dominance in first three games) “Honestly, I think our line just wants it more. Last year, I don’t want to say we weren’t looking too good, but this year, we’re really stepping it up, after last year, what some people would call a poor performance. A lot of people were telling us that our line was our weak spot. So we decided that we would personally take that on ourselves and make that change.

“And also it’s due in big part to Coach Nate McClaine. He’s doing a great job, coaching us and teaching us what we can do better each game and every week.

“We’re definitely excited for the rest of the season and everybody here is just ready to prove that we’re still Clarion and Clarion is still on top.

“We do a good job of pass protection. And Ty Burford and Spencer Miller are really taking a lot of pressure off us. That way they have to guard against the pass and the run, which I think was an element we were missing last year. We’re really starting to capitalize on it this year.”

(Thanks to Matt Buchanan for spotting and contributing to this article. GREAT JOB, CATS!!!!)