ELCO over Schuylkill Valley

Written by: Gary Wenzel on Saturday, September 4th, 2021. Follow Gary Wenzel on Twitter.

On Friday, Schuylkill Valley hosted the Eastern Lebanon County Raiders in their home opener for the 2021 season. The Panthers came into this game 0-1 after a 35-7 loss last week against Springfield. This was ELCO’s first game of the season.

In 2020, the Raiders went undefeated in the regular season but suffered a loss to Lampeter-Strasburg in the second round of the playoffs.

ELCO runs a triple-option offense, with senior Luke Williams getting most of the workload. In ELCO’s first drive they ran it eight times and took 5:02 off the clock. The drive ended with the quarterback, Cole Thomas, punching it in from four yards out.

Schuylkill Valley answered with their own five-minute touchdown drive. Quarterback, Drew Campbell, capped off the drive with a six-yard touchdown run. The PAT was blocked by Luke Williams.

What seemed to be a promising drive for ELCO came to a halt when Thomas fumbled a snap and SV’s Jacob Stelluti scooped it up at the Panthers nine. At the half, ELCO led SV 7-6.

There was no scoring again until the fourth quarter when ELCO’s Elliott Kreider ran it in from three yards out. This capped off a 10:39, 19 play drive. This put the Raiders up 14-6.

ELCO sealed the game with another Thomas four-yard touchdown run. This put ELCO up 21-6 with less than seven minutes remaining. 

ELCO’s clock chewing, the triple-option offense simply wore down the SV defense. Schuylkill Valley kept this a close game for three quarters. The Panthers forced a few turnovers as well.

ELCO improves to 1-0. While Schuylkill Valley falls to 0-2. Next Friday, ELCO will travel to Conrad Weiser. And Schuylkill Valley will head southeast to face Pottsgrove.

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