Bulldogs Toss a Shutout at Bald Eagle Area

Written by: William Albright on Saturday, October 25th, 2014. Follow William Albright on Twitter.

By BILL ALBRIGHT
EasternPAFootball.com Senior Writer

JERSEY SHORE — When a team is rolling along, there are always a few games that might be labeled as “trap” games. Fortunately for Jersey Shore, Friday night didn’t turn out to be one of those games.

Entering the contest with Bald Eagle Area sporting a spotless 8-0 mark, the Bulldogs’ log remained unblemished as Shore dominated the Eagles for a 33-0 win at Thompson Street Stadium much to the delight of a large crowd on Shore Senior Night.

“What I told our kids was that I was most proud of their focus on this game because we had a lot of distractions this week,” said Shore head coach Tom Gravish. “It seemed like there was a whole ton of things that were trying to trip us up and our guys could have been tripped up. Eighty-five percent of the world might have been tripped up, but these guys answered the bell early. We were a little sloppy in this game, but the good thing is that we didn’t get sloppy until we had a little bit of a cushion. Had we been sloppy from the beginning, then you might get trapped.”

While Gravish was proud of the way his team responded after an exhausting 16-10 win over Selingrove last week, he also gave credit to the Eagles for playing hard.

“Hats off to the BEA kids because they just played their hearts out,” Gravish said. “We reminded our kids this week that although they didn’t know much about Bald Eagle Area, having been from there I knew they were tough kids. I told them they were going to play us as tough as Selinsgrove did. They might not be as good as Selinsgrove, but pound-for-pound, they are as tough as Selinsgrove. They have kids on their roster who have been in the state wrestling picture as well as state baseball and basketball so they know how to play hard.”

While Shore has gone nine up and nine down, the Eagles are winding down a frustrating 2-7 season.

Mistakes have been a thorn in the side of the Eagles for much of the season and in the loss to Shore, that was again the case.

“Mistakes has been our Achilles Heel this year,” said BEA head coach Ron Hoover. “The kids played four quarters and they played hard. It was a physical game, but the bottom line is that you just can’t make mistakes like we made and hang with a football team as good as Shore is. The penalties (nine for 86 yards) killed us and there is no reason for that.”

If there was a bright spot for the Eagles in the loss that would have been the third quarter when they ran off 22 plays while the Bulldogs only had five snaps during the twelve minutes. However, the unfortunate thing for the Eagles is that although they controlled the action during the period, they didn’t put any points on the scoreboard.

“We got close, but again, the little things hurt us,” Hoover said. “We got sacked and then we had a penalty and that put us in a fourth-and-long situation. We completed a pass on fourth down, but it just came up four yards short. We had a good chance to score there and we should have put some points on the board. Although we didn’t score, I was real happy to see the way we moved the ball against their defense.”

Once again the winning formula for Shore was as it has been for the season. Score more than enough points to win, smack people on defense and don’t self-destruct in any one of the three areas of the game.

We are happy with all three phases of our game and we are really pleased with the effort we are getting from Colby Koch,” said Gravish. “He is really improving on his kickoffs and he has been a great addition to our team. We had another kicker from the soccer team in my first year in Zac Velez and it is good to have these kids making a contribution to our effort.”

The Bulldogs scored on four of their first five possessions, tallying a pair of touchdowns in each of the first two quarters before tacking on another six-pointer in the final stanza.

The Bulldogs showed a balanced offensive attack en route to the win as junior tailback Levi Lorson rushed the ball 30 times for 189 yards and a pair of scores, while quarterback Logan English completed eight of 11 pass attempts for a pair of scores, a 35-yard effort to Derek Leese followed by a 24-yard toss to Brody Smith. English scored the game’s final points when he went in from three yards to set the final.

For the Eagles, Mitchel Struble led the offense with 67 yards on 17 carries, while quarterback Jason Jones completed seven of 11 attempts for 66 yards.

Now 9-0 with Central Mountain remaining, Gravish doesn’t see a problem in getting his troops ready to close out the regular season.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problem getting ready for next week,” he said. “It is a rival game and a tremendous rivalry has developed between the two schools. I know we are looking forward to it and I know they are as well. They have some athletes who have played in playoff situations as well. We have a lot of respect for their coaching staff up there and we are looking forward to going up there because Malinak Stadium is a great place to play a game.”

BEA 0 0 0 0 — 0
JS 14 13 0 6 — 33

First Quarter

JS — Derek Leese 35 pass from Logan English. (Colby Koch kick). 6:44

JS — Levi Lorson 17 run. (Koch kick). 1:05

Second Quarter

JS — Lorson 10 run. (kick failed) 10:21

JS — Brody Smith 24 pass from English. (Koch kick) 6:14

Fourth Quarter

JS — English 3 run. (kick failed) 7:46.

Team Statistics BEA JS

First Downs 10 26

Rushes-Yards 41-85 48-269