H.S. FOOTBALL: Williams Valley wins thriller against Minersville
· Yahoo Sports
MINERSVILLE — Down eight points in the fourth quarter, things were looking bleak for Williams Valley, but as they have all year, the battle-tested Vikings found a way to win and escaped with a 36-34 overtime victory.
“(This was) a character win for us,” Williams Valley Coach Frank Gaffney said. “Everything you can do in a football game to lose, we did. I’ve said it all year long, my guys are resilient. They’re battle-tested, trials and tribulations.”
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The game started out as a defensive battle, until John Lutsky ran for a 39-yard touchdown to give Minersville a 7-0 lead one minute into the second quarter.
Williams Valley responded with a touchdown drive of its own, capped off by a 2-yard run by Trevon Bair out of the wildcat formation. Bair followed up the touchdown with the two-point conversion to give the Vikings an 8-7 lead.
After not being featured much on offense through six weeks, Bair was ready when called upon, finishing the game with three touchdowns and 84 yards on 11 carries.
“The kid can play football, and I’ve limited his touches, and that—that’s on me,” Gaffney said. “This week we really said, ‘How do I get 24 the ball,’ and we did tonight.”
The Vikings got the ball back with a chance to extend the lead before halftime, but the Minersville defense had other plans, as Derek Derenzo took an interception 45 yards for a touchdown to put the Battlin’ Miners back in front.
“I don’t think anybody except the people in the locker room gave us a chance in this game, and we took a really, really good football team — one of the best teams in the state — to overtime,” Minersville Coach Justin Frantz said.
Minersville took the 14-8 lead into halftime, and was set to receive the second-half kickoff.
The lead did not last long.
Just as the Miners came up with an interception to prevent the Vikings from extending their lead at the end of the first half, Williams Valley’s Mason Bowser brought in an interception of his own on the first drive of the second half.
The turnover led to six points when quarterback Caden Witmer punched it in from the 1-yard line. The two-point try was no good, and the game was tied at 14.
Minersville quickly rebounded and retook the lead four minutes later on a 55-yard pass from Derek Derenzo to Justin Cutler.
Trailing by seven, Gaffney went back to the wildcat on the first play of the fourth quarter, and Fletcher Thompson ran the direct snap in for a 25-yard touchdown. However, Minersville stopped another two-point attempt and held on to the 21-20 lead.
The Miners had another chance to extend their lead, and this time they capitalized.
Faced with a fourth down just inside the Williams Valley 40-yard line, Frantz left his offense on the field.
It was the right call, as Derenzo scampered for 23 yards to pick up the first down, and a few plays later, ran it in from 9 yards out for the touchdown.
The extra point put Minersville up 28-20.
“Hats off to Minersville. I told everybody coming in, they’re the best 1-5 team that you’ll see all year,” Gaffney said. “Coach Frantz has these kids ready to play. They came ready to play us, they’re battle-tested too. Derenzo was a stud tonight.”
The Vikings needed a touchdown, and Gaffney turned to Bair to make it happen.
He barrelled in for a 1-yard touchdown and again took it in himself for the two-point conversion to tie the game at 28 with 3:49 to go.
“Trey Bair, who doesn’t really carry the ball much, stepped up,” Gaffney said. “It’s hard to speak about a team that just doesn’t quit on you. They don’t quit on me.”
Williams Valley got the touchdown, but now it needed a stop, and Minersville was not going down without a fight.
With the clock winding down, Derenzo found Justin Cutler down the sideline for a 45-yard gain to put the Miners in the red zone.
However, a holding penalty on the next play pushed them back.
It proved to be costly, as Jordan Bowers’ 47-yard field goal attempt as time expired in regulation came up short, sending the game to overtime.
Minersville won the overtime coin toss and elected to play defense first.
The Miners got off to a strong start by stuffing Thompson for a short gain on the first play, but a significant injury to a Minersville player led to a long delay.
“(We) go out there and that young man got injured at the end of the game. I tell my kids all the time, life is bigger than football, man,” an emotional Gaffney said. “You don’t ever want to see a kid get injured. You know, I just started thinking back, I have a six and a four-year-old. You don’t want to see a kid get injured, that sucks. But resilient, who they are, man. This team’s just resilient, they find a way, no matter what happens.”
When the teams retook the field, Gaffney decided to go back to Bair, who carried it in for the 9-yard touchdown.
“In any other situation, you’re saying Fletcher Thompson’s getting the ball down there,” Gaffney said. “They lined up for it, and as soon as I saw their defensive front — yeah, it was great.”
Thompson did end up getting the ball, converting on the two-point try to give the Vikings their first lead since the second quarter.
The Miners had another response, though, as Derenzo hit Bowers in the end zone on the first play of their possession.
“I don’t believe in moral victories,” Frantz said. “But the way the kids battled and fought, I couldn’t be any prouder of them.
If they were successful on the two-point conversion, they’d live to fight in a second overtime. If they failed, the game was over.
The Vikings had been unable to find the big stop they needed for four quarters, but they got it in overtime, stuffing the attempt in the backfield to end the game.
“It’s another special one,” Gaffney said. “We just keep finding a way.”
Williams Valley, now 6-1 on the season, will host Marian Catholic next week. Minersville, now 1-6, will travel to Mahanoy Area.