MILTON – Milton has had a bit of a tough schedule in the first half of the year. With games against Mount Carmel, Danville and Montoursville over the last three weeks, and 6-0 Bloomsburg back in Week 1, Milton limped its way to a 1-4 start heading into Friday’s game against Northwest to open the second half of the regular season, and the Black Panthers were shut out in consecutive games the last two weeks.
That gave them some bottled up energy that was just waiting to be unleashed, and Milton finally was able to do so against the 4-1 Rangers. Not only did they unleash some frustration, but they also completed the rare feat of having a pair of 100-yard passers and a 100-yard rusher on the same team in the same game.
Paxton Humphrey and Kamryn Wilson threw for 145 and 100 yards, respectively, and Luis Santos ran for 167 yards, and the Black Panthers rode those performances to their second win of the season, 33-10 over Northwest.
“We had a brutal stretch of three games with Mount Carmel, Danville and Montoursville. Northwest was very physical, you could tell those guys hit the weight room, and anytime you’re playing someone that’s 4-1 and you only have one win, you’re just eager to get out there and play, and our guys were up the task today,” said Milton coach Matthew Wilson.
The younger Wilson completed 5-of-7 passes and also rushed for a touchdown – Milton’s only first half score. He then shifted to receiver late in the first half, and Humphrey took over under center and proceeded to lead the Black Panthers to four touchdowns in the second half before Northwest tacked on a late touchdown. Humphrey completed 11-of-16 passes with a pair of touchdowns.
“We lost one of our starting receivers last week, and Kamryn is very skilled at the receiver position,” said Wilson. “We have faith in both of our quarterbacks, and we know a lot of teams are going to stack the box so if we can spread them out and have guys that can catch the ball and can make things happen, we’re going to do that, so we put Kamryn out there and trusted Paxton to get the ball out quick.
“We’ve been stressing getting off the ball, running routes fast, selling everything like you’re running a go ball to get those defenders to think or to open their hips quicker. That’s what we focused on in practice. I don’t know if we’ll keep doing the two quarterback thing but we’ll keep rolling with it until it gets stopped.”
Milton’s passing game not only produced 245 yards through the air, but it also opened up the running game for Santos, who carried the ball 22 times for 167 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s fast and physical, but it starts up front with our offensive line,” said Wilson. “We focused on fixing some things this week, switched some things up and I think we found our mixture of guys on the line and anytime Santos gets space, he can make it happen.”
Milton’s defense held Northwest to just 168 yards of offense – all on the ground – and took 49 plays to do so, averaging just 3.4 yards per play while failing to complete a pass.
“Milton did a great job of stopping our bread and butter play with one guy,” said Northwest coach Greg Mullins. “Hats off to them, but inexcusable for us to not stop that. One of our staple plays is that buck sweep. Everyone knows it, it’s on film, we’ve been very successful at it, and you make adjustments to change things around but it was still that one player that was able to wreck havoc.”
That one player was Brady O’Rourke of Milton, and he led the way to stifling Northwest’s offense, which also lost a pair of fumbles and was unable to take advantage of three Milton turnovers, only scoring off one of them near the end of the game.
It was a close game for most of the contest, though, until Milton pulled away with three touchdowns in the last 15 minutes of the game.
Wilson’s 1-yard touchdown run that capped an 11-play, 77-yard drive on Milton’s first possession of the game in the first quarter gave the Black Panthers a 6-0 lead that they would take into halftime.
The Black Panthers then mishandled the second half kickoff and started their possession at their own 5-yard line. After a penalty pushed them back, Santos was tackled in the end zone on the first play from scrimmage of the second half, giving Northwest the safety and cutting the lead to 6-2.
But that was as close as the Rangers would get. The free kick following the safety went over Northwest’s deep man’s head and into the end zone for a safety – an 80-yard kick.
Northwest then fumbled away a carry on its second play of that drive, giving Milton the ball at the Ranger 22. Four plays later, Milton answered right back with an eight-yard touchdown run by Jacori Brown to extend its lead to 14-2.
Milton took a 20-2 lead on Santos’ 14-yard touchdown run with 2:18 remaining in the third quarter. They then scored two more touchdowns on back-to-back possessions in the fourth quarter as Humphrey hit Jhemzuel Feliciano for a 19-yard touchdown and then later hit O’Rourke for a 19-yard touchdown after the Black Panthers recovered a Northwest fumble.
Feliciano was just five yards shy of giving Milton a 100-yard receiver as well, as he hauled in four passes for 95 yards to go along with his score.
The Rangers finally got into the end zone with :59 left in the game when Noah Arnett broke off a 37-yard run for a touchdown. Arnett had 152 rushing yards on 23 carries.
“Everything works off of our plays, so it’s a system and series of plays, and even when we had a couple of other plays that were working, we tried to go back into it and they stopped it,” said Mullins. “I think, physically, we matched up well, so that was disappointing. Our kids worked too hard in the offseason to get bigger, faster and stronger, for this kind of result, so it’s disappointing.”
Milton 33, Northwest 10
Northwest (4-2) 0 0 2 8 – 10
Milton (2-4) 6 0 14 13 – 33
First quarter
4:49 – (M) Kamryn Wilson 1-yard run (kick blocked), 11-77, 5:15
Third quarter
11:49 – (N) Team Safety
10:13 – (M) Jacori Brown 8-yard run (Santos pass from Humphrey), 4-22, :57
2:18 – (M) Luis Santos 14-yard run (pass failed), 5-39, 2:08
Fourth quarter
7:04 – (M) Jhemzuel Feliciano 19-yard pass from Paxton Humphrey (O’Grady kick), 6-72, 2:46
3:54 – (M) Brady O’Rourke 18-yard pass from Paxton Humphrey (kick blocked), 4-50, 2:02
:59 – (N) Noah Arnett 37-yard run (Bilby run), 4-56, 1:32
Statistics
N M
First downs 7 23
Rushes-net yards 39-168 39-182
Passing yardage 0 245
Passing 0-10-0-0 16-23-2-1
Fumbles-lost 2-2 4-3
Penalties-yards 12-110 11-87
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Northwest: Noah Arnett (23-152-1), Robby Voyton (7-13), Loegan Diltz (4-21), Mason Bilby (2-(-12)), Wyatt Orlowski (1-2), Ben Bonham (1-(-2)), Cole Cavuto (1-(-6)); Milton: Luis Santos (22-167-1), Jacori Brown (7-64-1), Paxton Humphrey (4-(-9)), Kamryn Wilson (3-(-8)-1), Gavin Whitenight (1-(-5)), Jhemzuel Feliciano (1-(-7)), Team (1-(-20))
PASSING: Northwest: Cole Cavuto (0-7-0-0-0), Mason Bilby (0-3-0-0-0); Milton: Paxton Humphrey (11-16-145-2-1), Kamryn Wilson (5-7-100-0-0)
RECEIVING: Northwest: None; Milton: Jhemzuel Feliciano (4-95-1), Luis Santos (4-58), Kamryn Wilson (4-42), Jacori Brown (2-27), Brady O’Rourke (1-18-1), Nehemiah Crawford (1-4)