Southern’s Defense Dominates Shamokin

Written by: Dave Fegley on Saturday, September 19th, 2015. Follow Dave Fegley on Twitter.

Becker returns from injury

By: Dave Fegley (Twitter: @DFegs9)

Southern Columbia traveled to Kemp Memorial Stadium Friday night and picked up a 49-27 victory. Just looking at the box score, readers may think that Shamokin Area was able to hang with the victors, but that was far from the truth. One statistic to show the type of dominance the Tigers displayed is by looking at Shamokin’s passing results. In the first half seven Indian passes were caught, but unfortunately for them, four of them fell into the hands of Tiger defenders. “We are inexperienced in our passing game and that certainly showed against Southern. I thought our guys on the outside would be able to matchup with them athletically, and unfortunately that wasn’t the case,” said Shamokin coach Pat DiRienzo.

Billy Marzeski picked off the first one, Austin Knepp took the next one back for a touchdown, and Cam Young intercepted the final two. “That was my first ever defensive touchdown, but I can’t take any of the credit on the play. Our defensive line was solid all night, and on that play Gabe Delbo and Matt Bell pressured their quarterback and I was able to read the screen. Then I just made the play on the ball.” Knepp said about his pick six. Knepp, a first year Tiger, moved from Penn Ridge last year where he played a lot of different positions. “I played fullback and then got moved to the line on offense. On defense I switched around as well. I’m excited to be back playing linebacker at Southern. I love it here because everyone is so close with everyone and we have a lot of big expectations for the season,” said Knepp.

Southern’s senior quarterback Nick Becker, who left the opener in an ambulance with a non-throwing shoulder injury, surprised fans by making an earlier return than expected. “The doctors felt that the shoulder wasn’t going to be much stronger in another week and the damage that occurred isn’t going to be much more healed in another week. I thought his timing and execution was a little off, but that’s certainly understandable considering the circumstance,” said Tiger coach Jim Roth. The senior quarterback may have only completed six of thirteen passes, but the six that were completed caused a lot of damage. He threw three touchdown passes, two on screen passes to Hunter Thomas and another to receiver Cam Young, and finished with 155 yards in less than a half of work. “I didn’t officially know I was coming back until Thursday. I felt good all week in practice, and was excited to get back. The physical therapist didn’t really want me to, but I thought I was as close to ready as I will be,” Becker said. The veteran showed a lot of guts because a lot of players that suffer an injury of that severity may be done for the entire season. 14 days later #14 was back out there leading the charge for his Tigers.

Southern’s six first half scores were enough to put the game in the Mercy Rule for the entire second half. The other two touchdowns were scored by fullback Jared Torres and Thomas had another one on the ground. Through three games, Thomas has now scored nine total touchdowns for the Tigers. Shamokin’s leading rusher Preston Burns scored the lone Indian touchdown in the first half from 52 yards out to make the halftime score 42-7. If not for allowing that touchdown, the Tigers had Burns bottled up the entire first half. The senior running back came in through two weeks with 357 rushing yards, but the Tigers held him to negative three yards on eight carriers before he pulled off that long run at the end of the half. “Our defense played great tonight. Coming into the season we knew if our defense started to gel that we were going to be tough. Besides that one run our starters shut Burns down. He came into the game a little cocky, but I think he knows now what our defense can do,” Becker said.

Shamokin left their starters in for the majority of the second half against the Tiger reserves and were able to score three times. Garrett Zalar, Isaiah Reiprich, and Marcus Dievert were the Indians that found the end zone. Southern’s Thomas Manley scored the lone second half touchdown for the Tigers. The final score, 49-27, wasn’t any indication of how one-sided the game was. Southern will head home for their annual alumni night next week. The Tigers (3-0) will host Danville. Shamokin (1-2) will take on Selinsgrove.

 

SCA: 28-14-0-7 = 49
SHAM: 0-7-14-6 = 27

SOUTHERN COLUMBIA (3-0)

RUSHING:

Hunter Thomas 7-70, TD; Blake Marks 3-8; Jared Torres 9-52, TD; Billy Marzeski 4-12; Nic Fetterman 8-32; Thomas Manley 3-39, TD; Jake Potter 2-13; AJ Goodlunas 1-8; Sami Abdul 1-2; Drew Michaels 2-(-6); Nick Becker 1-(-4)

PASSING:

Nick Becker 6-13-0, 155 yds, 3 TDs; Drew Michaels 2-2-0, 47 yds

RECEIVING:

Cam Young 3-64, TD; Steve Toczylousky 1-40; Hunter Thomas 2-68, 2 TDs; Blake Marks 2-30

1st DOWNS: 15

PENALTIES: 10-85

SHAMOKIN (1-2)

RUSHING:

Preston Burns 16-136, TD; Garrett Zalar 5-35, TD; Mark Wetzel 3-11; Devin Pietkiewicz 4-9; Isaiah Reiprich 1-8; Jake Jeremiah 1-2; Jake DiRienzo 1-1; Tom Campbell 2-(-1); Ty Berge 1-(-4)

PASSING:

Tom Campbell 6-19-4, 133 yds, TD; Zack Johnson 4-6-0, 46 yds, TD

RECEIVING:

Isaiah Reiprich 2-109, TD; Jake Jeremiah 2-17; Devin Pietkiewicz 2-14; Jake DiRienzo 2-10; Marcus Dievert 1-22, TD; Mark Wetzel 1-7

1st DOWNS: 15

PENALTIES: 6-45

Shamokin stats provided by Damien Scoblink (PE)

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3 Responses to “Southern’s Defense Dominates Shamokin”

1. Rob says:
   September 19th, 2015 at 11:59 am

   Becker did miss a few passes, but most of the ones he missed came from being rushed. So in reality, it wasn’t entirely his fault. Also on the pass plays, it looked like they used a variety of passes. They could have ran the same pass plays and scored whenever they wanted to. To knock out the negativity, becker looked quite well for basically his first game of his senior year.

2. Justin says:
   September 19th, 2015 at 10:31 am

   Boy that Knepp kid was a heck of player to get. The Tigers have lucked out with a handful of players moving into the area the past couple of years. Knepp could be an all-state player like the Barnes boy who came last year was. Unfortunately they only got each of them for one season. Thomas and Young came from Bloom earlier so that is helpful. Especially with how dynamic the Thomas kid has been thus far.

3. District IV Follower says:
   September 19th, 2015 at 10:14 am

   Becker coming back after leaving in an ambulance two weeks ago sounds a little fishy. Clearly the injury wasn’t that serious. Plus it was on his non-throwing shoulder. He was very inaccurate last night and the passes he did complete weren’t very difficult. Besides one of them, they were all screen passes, so basically run plays that the running back does all of the work. The article and stats may say that he had 155 yards, but give Thomas the credit for picking up over half of them on the two touchdown screen passes. I think if SCA goes up against a solid secondary they may struggle.