Fast start leads Trojans past Newport

Written by: Cody Smith on Friday, September 22nd, 2023. Follow Cody Smith on Twitter.

ELIZABETHVILLE – A whopping 22 first-quarter points pushed Upper Dauphin ahead early, and those points would prove to be more than enough Friday night as the Trojans were able to fend off visiting Newport by a final score of 22-6 on homecoming night.

Trojan quarterback Aidan Bingaman threw for over 200 yards and three touchdowns in the contest to lead the charge.

“He’s a good football player,” said Upper Dauphin coach Kent Smeltz of his junior quarterback. “He’s getting better all the time. He was second-team all-league last year, so we expect him to be a playmaker. Last year we needed him to be more of a game-manager. This year we’ve challenged him to be a playmaker and in practice he has shown an ability to do more things that we need him to do.”

After winning the opening coin toss and electing to receive rather than defer to the second half, Smeltz and the Trojan offense marched right down the field on a six-play drive that covered 72 yards for an early score.

Sophomore running back Carter Dreibelbis broke free on a 16-yard touchdown run for the lead, while Bingaman hit Tegan Engle in the flat for a two-point conversion to put the home team up 8-0 early.

A Newport fumble on their first offensive drive of the game gave Upper Dauphin good field position for their second drive, which they would also score on. Once again it was Bingaman to Engle – this time from 29-yards out – for a catch-and-run score.

Later in the first quarter the Trojan defense forced a punt and then scored on their first offensive play of the drive. On the final play of the opening quarter, Bingaman found an open Tyler Erdley who used his speed to break away from the Newport defense and ran the whole way down the near sideline for a 78-yard touchdown reception. A missed PAT gave Upper Dauphin a 22-0 lead.

Engle went over the century mark on the night, catching three balls in the game for a total of 114 yards. He led all receivers in the game.

Unfortunately for Upper Dauphin, the momentum seemed to stop there, as the team didn’t find pay dirt again until the fourth quarter. After an interception from senior linebacker Keatin Dieffenbach, the Trojans marched down the field again, but a fumble at the Newport one-yard line that rolled into the endzone was recovered by Newport for a touchback.

“Unfortunately we had some drops in the first half and shot ourselves in the foot on some occasions” said Smeltz.

Neither offense could get anything going for the remainder of the half until Newport coach Todd Rothermel was able to make some halftime adjustments.

“Honestly at halftime my message to the kids was ‘It’s 22-0,but I think we’ve beat ourselves 22-0.’” said Rothermel “We made so many mistakes defensively and offensively. We weren’t sustaining blocks, we weren’t tackling well in space, we weren’t moving our feet; just uncharacteristic stuff that we don’t do in practice. It took us a while to settle into the speed of the game.”

Newport opened the second half with a drive of epic proportions. The Buffalo offense methodically pieced together a 16-play drive that marched 77 yards down the field and took 10 minutes and 23 seconds off of the clock to start the third quarter. On the drive, Newport converted on five third downs.

Newport quarterback Zach Bates ran for 71 yards on the drive and capped the drive off with a 7-yard touchdown run.

Bates ended up leading Newport in rushing on the night, toting the ball 13 times for a total of 77 yards.

“I challenged the guys,” said Rothermel. “We knew we were getting the ball and we needed to drive and we needed to put some plays together. That drive was probably the highlight of our season to this point. For our group of kids to do that was a big step for us. I’m not a big moral-win guy, but that was good stuff.”

Upper Dauphin tacked on a touchdown in the fourth quarter as the final score of the game when Bingaman tossed a four-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Snyder for his third passing score of the night.

“I’m happy that we were clicking tonight,” said Bingaman of his performance. “We had some good practices this week. Now we’ve got to get ready for Halifax next week.”

“Newport is the best 0-5 team in the state,” said Smeltz of the visiting team’s performance.. “They’re well coached and they’ve played a tough schedule. This was no runaway for us.”

Upper Dauphin’s victory improved the team’s overall record to 3-2 on the season. The team faces a tough road test next week, traveling to the fellow 3-2 Halifax Wildcats.

Newport (0-5) looks for its first victory of the season next week when coach Rothermel faces a familiar foe, traveling to Glenn Ressler Field to take on Line Mountain (3-2).

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