Schuylkill Haven Remains Undefeated With a Victory Over Minersville

Schuylkill Haven’s 520 total offensive yards led them to a 48-38 Thursday night victory as they hosted Minersville at Rotary Field. Even with Niko Carestia being injured, the Hurricanes were still able to use the ground game and run all over the Battlin’ Miners.

To start the night, Minersville had possession for almost six minutes as Jordan Bowers kicked an opening drive field goal to make the score 3-0 in favor of the Miners. Colton Reber had no problem responding with a 66-yard rushing touchdown to give the Hurricanes a 7-3 lead with 3:07 remaining in the first quarter.

After that touchdown, Paiten LaPoint of Minersville took the kickoff back for an 81-yard touchdown to give them a 10-7 lead. On the next drive, Reber got another rushing touchdown from four yards out to give the Hurricanes a 14-10 lead with 1:06 left in the quarter.

At the start of the second quarter, Dante Carr of the Battlin’ Miners, fumbled less than two minutes into the quarter. He (Carr) was about to score using his scrambling abilities when Adam Baluis recovered the fumble at the Schuylkill Haven one-yard line. Over four minutes later, Niko Castillo got in the end zone with a 20-yard run to make the score 21-10 in favor of the Hurricanes.

With 5:39 left in the first half, Carr found his cousin, Ty Atkinson, for a 27-yard touchdown in the air to cut the Hurricane lead to 21-17. Castillo struck again, this time with a 35-yard rushing touchdown. Grayson Fessler missed the PAT to put the score at 27-21 with 3:15 remaining in the second quarter. Only 56 seconds later, Carr ran 45 yards to glory to give the Miners another touchdown, making the score 27-24.

As the clock showed 15.5 seconds, Max Heim gave the Hurricanes their first passing touchdown as he found Castllo for a seven-yard touchdown making the score 34-24. With 0.8 seconds left, Dante Carr threw an interception as both teams headed off to the locker room for halftime.

The second half did not contain a lot of scoring as the defense started to come to life. Logan Goad of Schuylkill Haven ran 27 yards to make the score 41-24 with 10:36 remaining on the clock. Carr once again lowered the Battlin’ Miners deficit as he used his legs for an eight-yard touchdown, which made the score 41-31.

In the final minute of the third quarter, Reber used his legs once again for another touchdown. That made the score 48-31 in favor of Schuylkill Haven going into the last frame of the game. Until 2:07 left in the game, nothing happened in the fourth quarter as Brandon Adams of Minersville recovered a fumble. Matthew Dube got his only touchdown of the night with 42.8 seconds remaining as Carr found him for a 32-yard passing touchdown. That would make the score 48-38, which was the final score.

LaPoint also broke the all-time receiving yards record at Minersville. The previous record was held by Gabe Davis (2017-2020) who had 1613 yards. Carr is spending his weekend at Orlando as the Central Florida commit is going on a visit to the Knights game as they face North Carolina.

Minersville falls to 3-2 after facing two tough teams whereas Schuylkill Haven goes to 5-0. The Battlin’ Miners travel to Marian Catholic on Saturday night. The Hurricanes travel to Williams Valley on Friday.