Bobcats Move To 8-1 With Win Over Rovers (10/22/19)
(Above Photo: Austin Newcomb who went over 4,000 career rushing yards)
The Clarion Bobcat Football Team traveled to Brockway on Friday (October 18th) and came away with a 63-13 win. With the win the Bobcats move to 8-1.
The Rovers opened the scoring when quarterback Jonathan Wood tossed for a fourteen yard touchdown, at 5:48 of the first quarter. Lewis Painter kicked the extra point, giving Brockway a 7-0 lead.
Austin Newcomb answered for the Bobcats at 3:36, with a touchdown run off tackle to the right, from ten yards out. The point after was blocked, leaving the Cats down 7-6.
At 11:06 of the second quarter, Wood scrambled around the backfield, evading a tackle and threw to Austin Schmader who was beyond the defenders, for a thirty-three yard touchdown. The point after failed and the Rovers led 13-6.
Colton Zacherl ran around left end for a from fourteen yards out at 9:04. Cal German rolled to the near the right sideline and found Cutter Boggess in traffic, in the middle of the field at the front of the endzone, for the two-point conversion, to tie the game at 14-all.
With 5:12 left in the quarter, with the Bobcats at their own 49 yard line, German dropped back and fired a beautiful pass to Hunter Craddock in the middle of the field at the twenty. Hunter hauled it in, broke a tackle and angled to the right, outrunning three defenders for a 51 yard touchdown. The two-point conversion attempt failed and the Cats led 20-13.
At 2:30, linebacker Ben Smith leaped in front of a Brockway receiver at the Rovers’ forty-five and returned it to the thirty. On the very next play, Newcomb took a handoff up the middle, weaved through traffic, cut to the right and outran everyone for the touchdown. He ran around right end for the two-point conversion and Clarion’s lead moved to 28-13, with 2:22 left in the half.
On the touchdown run, Newcomb surpassed the 4,000 yard plateau for his career.
The Bobcats put up one more score before the half, moving their lead to 34-13. With about twelve seconds left at the Brockway forty-one, German hit a well covered Newcomb, just outside the endzone on the left sideline. The leaping Newcomb hauled it in for the touchdown. The point after was blocked.
Newcomb electrified the stadium, taking the second half kickoff, in the middle of the field at the Clarion fourteen, weaved through a number of defenders, cut to the right and outraced everyone for an 86 yard touchdown. Beau Verdill’s kick was good and the Cats led 41-13 at11:46.
Cutter Boggess would run for two more Bobcat touchdowns before the quarter ended. On the first touchdown, Boggess followed some great blocking through the middle, gave a defender a great stiff arm and ran in for a sixty-six yard score. Verdill was successful again and the Cats led 48-13, at the 8:53 mark.
Boggess followed that score, by following a big push from the offensive line up the middle, from three yards out at the three minute mark. After a penalty moved the Cats back five yards Verdill put it through the uprights from twenty-yards out. The Cats now led 55-13 heading to the last stanza.
The Bobcats final score came at 5:28, with Breckin Rex taking a handoff around right end and outracing everyone for a seventy-three touchdown. Alex Garduno ran off tackle left for the conversion, setting the 63-13 final.
Key Cat Stats:
Newcomb had 8 rushes for 113 yards and 41 yards receiving. Newcomb joins former Bobcat Kyle Cathcart (2001) in the 4,000 yard rushing club. Cathcart sits in sixth place and Newcomb in eighth. A major portion of Newcomb’s yardage came for Clarion-Limestone during the last two seasons, including his District Nine Single Season record of 2627.
In addition, Newcomb passed 1,000 yards for the season. He now has 1,050.
Boggess ran for 108 yards on 6 carries. Rex had 2 carries for 81 yards. Craddock had the one catch for 51 yards. German was 4-6 for 109 yards.
The Cats had 452 yards of total offense (343 rushing and 109 passing).
Cat Quotes
Coach Wiser:
On slow start to game: “I don’t know what it is. I must not be doing a very good job with my fire-up speeches, right? But, I felt comfortable coming out. I thought we had a good game plan.”
On the Rovers’ quarterback: “But that Woods kid is the real deal. We knew that. We tried to direct everything that we could defensively towards him. So, a lot of our defense was directed to stop him. Not that 16 (Conner Ford) is not a good running back. It was definitely Wood.
“So, we were able to make a couple of adjustments there and played a little bit different coverages than we started with. We slowed them down.
Offensively, I don’t think they shut us down all night. We moved the ball up and down the field. I’m very pleased. It’s nice to see Austin back in the line-up. He had a heck of a game. He played his first time at linebacker tonight and I thought he did pretty good there.
“Early on we were not containing ourselves, coming down flat on the line… We created gaps and give him credit again, that Woods kid’s tough.”
On some of the Bobcat contributors: “Cutter, both offensively and defensively. And early on, we we’re letting so many punts get by us. And his job is to catch and I said if he fumbles the ball, he fumbles the ball. I’d rather take the chance of not giving them 15 or 20 yards of field position. He dropped one there, but hey, he got on it real quick. So he does a nice job. I’m impressed. Obviously, Austin running the ball. Ethan Remmick was out tonight with the flu. So Jordan Wolbert, a junior comes in and does a nice job.
“And our line’s been tough all year. You’ve got Ben and Mitch and Gabe Coull and so forth. Hunter’s another kid who’s improving. He had a nice catch there at the beginning of the game. And Calvin, he can throw the ball. It certainly is nice when we can compliment each other on offense, being able to run and pass the ball. It’s been a while since we’ve had that kind of balance. And Ethan can obviously run. Hunter’s got great speed. And then that pass to Austin, 10-12 seconds into the game and so forth, that was nice.”
Austin Newcomb:
On returning to the lineup: “It felt great. We practiced our butts off this week. So it was a good game.”
On reaching 4,000 yards: “Oh yea, I got 4,000 yards; that feels amazing. That all goes to the line helping me. A big shout out to my line. The guys, we all stepped up and took home the win.”
Mitch Knepp:
On line’s great play: “We’re just doing our job. We’re given our job by our coaches, we’re told what to do and we’re executing.”
About the defense: “It was a little rough at the start of the game, but we’re doing ‘bend but don’t break.’ We bent a little bit. We gave them two touchdowns early. We settled down and started doing what we were supposed to; we stopped them and we started scoring ourselves.”
On how it feels being with Austin the whole way through his career at C-L and Clarion Area as he got 4,000 yards: “It’s great. He started off in tenth grade, showing his skills. We all know what he did last year, breaking the District Nine Single Season record. That was a great time last year. It’s great seeing someone that you’ve seen grow as a person and a football player and getting the opportunity to block for him. Knowing that you helped him get to that milestone, it’s a great feeling.”
Cutter:
On the way he’s stepped up his game recently: “Nothing’s really different. We’re just getting stuff. The line’s allowing time for the passes and on the runs, opening holes. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to get the ball a little more.”
Hunter:
About his touchdown: “It was good play calling by coach. Cal threw a perfect pass and I caught the ball and we ran it down for a touchdown. I think they were (in man coverage). And I blew it apart.”
About his play at defensive end: “We just came out and tried to put pressure on their quarterback to get him to come out of the pocket. And we tried to stop their running game as best we could. We worked hard this week on defense, during practice.”
The Bobcats will close out the regular season, at home on Senior Night against James Buchanan on Friday (October 25th).
(Thanks to Mike Smith and Nate McClaine for the photos,to Nate for spotting and stats, and to Steve Smail for his stats. Great Game Cats!!!