CANTON – Wellsboro looked great on the opening drive of Saturday afternoon’s game at Canton, going 83 yards in 15 plays for a touchdown and taking up over half of the first quarter in doing so.
The only problem was, the Hornets lost their starting quarterback, Griffin Morral, during that drive, and although his backup, Derrick Blasz, threw a touchdown pass to cap the drive, that would be more than the extent of Wellsboro’s offense on the afternoon.
The Hornets ended up with negative cumulative yardage on the remainder of its drives after that first possession, and Canton took advantage of a Wellsboro turnover early in the second quarter to score a touchdown and then later added another one on the opening drive of the second half, and that was enough to lift the Warriors to a 14-6 win over Wellsboro to improve to 3-1 on the season.
“It’s a big win for us. Wellsboro is always tough to play,” said Canton coach Tyler Sechrist. “Them not having their quarterback I’m sure killed the morale for their team since he’s their leader so that was tough for them, but we were able to capitalize on that.”
The win is a vitally important one for the Warriors in what figures to be a competitive race between five or six teams for four spots in the District 4 Class A playoffs. Not only do they improve to 3-1, but it is also a win over a Class 3A team in Wellsboro.
“Class A is tough, it’s going to be tight and likely come down to a few teams getting into those third and fourth spots so this a big one for us to get closer to that,” said Sechrist. “We’d love to have extra football, some extra games this year and to be playing well at the end of the year.”
Wellsboro’s opening drive took up over half of the first quarter – 7:47. In addition to the three fourth down conversions, it featured five first downs. After guiding his team more than 50 yards down the field on its opening drive and converting a pair of fourth downs, Morral hurt his lower leg while converting a fourth-and-1 play with a five-yard run. In came Blasz, who converted the third fourth down on the drive by tossing a 26-yard touchdown pass to Maxwell Mascho to give the Hornets a 6-0 lead after a muffed snap on the PAT.
For the remainder of the game, the Hornets had 10 more possessions, and those 10 drives produced a cumulative total of -14 yards and just three first downs. Canton recorded five sacks on the afternoon and stopped Wellsboro for negative yardage a total of nine times. The Hornets also turned the ball over twice, the first of which led to Canton’s first score.
“Losing Griffin hurt us but we have to be able to run the ball. We weren’t able to move anybody up front. Canton did a great job up front and were more physical than us today,” said Wellsboro coach Matt Hildebrand. “That was a point of emphasis for us this week and we just didn’t execute.”
After the Warriors had driven all the way down to the Wellsboro 10-yard line, and actually had a touchdown called back due to a penalty on their ensuing drive following Wellsboro’s score, the Hornets stopped them on downs.
On the second play of Wellsboro’s ensuing drive, Reed Richardson lost the ball after taking a handoff, and it was recovered by Canton at the Wellsboro 8-yard line. Three plays later, Owen Moore punched it in from a yard out and the made PAT gave the Warriors a 7-6 lead at the 10:48 mark of the second quarter.
Canton’s other touchdown came with the assist of a short field as Wellsboro attempted a short kickoff but it was fielded by one of Canton’s up-men and returned to the Wellsboro 48. On a fourth-and-5 play, Moore found Bailey Gardner, who hauled in the short pass and then went the rest of the way himself for a 43-yard touchdown reception to make it 14-6.
Moore completed 12-of-18 passes for 208 yards on the afternoon, of which seven went to Rylan Wesneski for 122 yards.
“Last week, that connection was pretty hot and this week was, too, so hopefully that keeps rolling,” said Sechrist. “Owen seems to know where Rylan is going to be and gets him the ball and Rylan has been catching the ball very well.”
Although Canton only found the end zone on two of its drives, the Warriors put together drives of 13, 10 and 8 yards, respectively, that did not end in scores, but burned off valuable time off the clock.
“We made a lot of mistakes. We probably should have won by two or three scores but we shot ourselves in the foot a lot,” said Sechrist. “But we got the win and saw some good things out there.”
Canton 14, Wellsboro 6
Wellsboro (1-3) 6 0 0 0 – 6
Canton (3-1) 0 7 7 0 – 14
First quarter
4:13 – (W) Maxwell Mascho 26-yard pass from Derrick Blasz (pass failed), 15-83, 7:47
Second quarter
10:48 – (C) Owen Moore 1-yard run (Dowling kick), 3-8, 1:07
Third quarter
10:42 – (C ) Bailey Gardner 43-yard pass from Owen Moore (Dowling kick), 4-48, 1:18
Statistics
W C
First downs 8 15
Rushes-net yards 24-(-7) 40-78
Passing yardage 76 208
Passing 9-21-1-1 12-19-1-1
Fumbles-lost 3-1 3-1
Penalties-yards 9-77 14-120
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Wellsboro: Reed Richardson (8-12), Maxwell Mascho (7-3), Derrick Blasz (6-(-25)), Griffin Morral (2-12), Team (1-(-9)); Canton: Owen Moore (15-(-15)-1), Bailey Gardner (13-64), Jaiden Ortiz (6-26), Brayden Lowery (6-3)
PASSING: Wellsboro: Derrick Blasz (6-16-52-1-1), Griffin Morral (3-5-24-0-0); Canton: Owen Moore (12-18-208-1-1), Bailey Gardner (0-1-0-0-0)
RECEIVING: Wellsboro: Maxwell Mascho (3-33-1), Christian Main (2-8), Grady Morral (1-12), Colton Hauser (1-11), Reed Richardson (1-7), Kody Enck (1-5); Canton: Rylan Wesneski (7-122), Bailey Gardner (2-58-1), Monte Whitehead (1-15), Alden Dowling (1-9), Jaiden Ortiz (1-8)