Falcons stop Mounts
- 30 October 2010
Cedar Crest football coach Tom Waranavage and his staff have had a lot of sleepless nights this season. A record of 0-8 will do that to you.Needless to say, he and his staff will finally be well rested when they wake up this morning.
Friday night at War Memorial Field in Ephrata, the visiting Falcons finally got off the schneid. Trailing 21-7 late in the third, they outscored the Mounts 21-2 the rest of the way to earn their first victory of the season in a 28-23 win [boxscore].
"I'm happy for our kids. I'm proud of our kids," Waranavage said following the win. "I thought with the exception of a few times this year we played hard. We've played hard every game. No matter who we've played we've battled. I'm just happy for our kids. I'm happy for our coaches and I'm proud of our kids."
After taking an intentional safety with 22 seconds left to make it a five-point game, the Falcons put it all on their defense in the final seconds as Ephrata took over after the free kick. And the defense responded, batting away the final desperation pass by Ephrata QB Jeremy Franck from midfield.
"The thing I was happiest about tonight was our defense hung in there, hung in there and hung in there," Waranavage said. "We took the safety at the end, and when you do that you are saying our defense is going to win it for us now. And our defense won it for us."
Trailing 14-7 at the half, the Falcons (1-5 Section One, 1-8 overall) fell behind by 14 as the Mounts (0-6, 2-7), drove the field in four plays to up their lead to 21-7. Zach Sandoe's 62-yard run set up a 16-yard touchdown pass from Franck to fullback Stephen Hendrickson three plays later.
But the Falcons responded offensively, scoring the next three times they touched the ball. They did it mostly behind the running of senior running back Dustin McFarland, who rushed for 92 of his game-high 144 yards in the second half.
McFarland made it 21-14 with an 11-yard touchdown run with 6:26 left in the third. And after the Falcon defense forced the only punt of the night, quarterback Garrett Levengood (7-of-12 passing for 156) hit fullback Brian Wawrzyniak on a 25-yard TD pass to tie the score at 21-21 heading to the fourth.
Cedar Crest then took the lead for good in the fourth, driving 63 yards in seven plays before Levengood finished it off with a 20-yard touchdown scramble with 3:31 to play.
"They just ran the ball down our throats (in the second half)," Ephrata Coach Jim Vieland said. "We made adjustments to take away (Lucardy Jean Francois), who really hurt us in the first half. But we just couldn't stop them. I mean, they didn't punt all night. That's pretty telling. You just can't win football games when you don't force a team to punt."
Jean Francois caught four passes for 116 yards in the first half (six catches for 131 yards overall), and set up a one-yard TD run by Levengood to open the scoring midway through the first quarter. Ephrata tied it at 7-7 early in the second quarter when Tim Murray took a screen pass from Franck 19 yards for the score.
The Mounts then grabbed the lead when Zach Sandoe (10-101) scored on a three-yard run with 32 seconds left to make it 14-7 Ephrata.
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.