Southern Columbia beats Bald Eagle Area in PIAA Class 2A Football Quarterfinal, 18-8

Written by: Matt Beltz on Saturday, November 25th, 2023. Follow Matt Beltz on Twitter.

CATAWISSA – For the second straight week, Southern Columbia found itself in a grind-it-out battle on Friday in the 2A state quarterfinals. A week after being in a scoreless tie with Troy before scoring a pair of second-half touchdowns, the Tigers once again battled through a scoreless tie against Bald Eagle Area in the first half.

And once again, just like last week, a few second-half plays were the difference in the game. Last week, it was two long drives that took up nearly half a quarter each. This week, it was a single long drive and two big plays that were the difference as Southern Columbia won its 39th straight postseason game with an 18-8 win over the Bald Eagles. The Tigers advance to meet Dunmore in next week’s 2A state semifinal as their hopes for a seventh straight and 14th overall state title remain alive.

Once again, it was Southern’s defense that led the way. After pitching two straight shutouts in its last two playoff games, the Tigers did concede a late touchdown to the Bald Eagles but made things uncomfortable for Bald Eagle’s standout quarterback Carson Nagle for most of the evening, sacking him three times, and pressuring him several others, while holding Bald Eagle to just 27 rushing yards.

“Both our coverage and the pass rush were outstanding again tonight and that was the key because the name of the game for them was throwing the football,” said Southern coach Jim Roth. “If our defense keeps playing the way it has been, it makes life easy offensively because even when we’re not going well and we’re struggling to move the ball, when you can keep stopping a team and keep giving your offense the ball back, not only does it keep giving us opportunities but it makes it tough on their defense and they have to keep responding. I think that’s where we eventually started to hit some things that we were capable of.”

“I’m really proud of every kid on this team. We went toe-to-toe with the king,” said Bald Eagle coach Jesse Nagle. “We had a couple of missed tackles there, or we might have won. Like I told the team, I saw what type of people they’re going to become in life because adversity hit and they kept on responding and they kept fighting and I’m so proud of them.”

Although they managed just 80 yards of offense themselves in the first half, the Tigers held Bald Eagles to only 56 yards of offense in the opening half. About the only difference between the first half last week was the lack of mud on the field, as well as Southern committing a pair of turnovers, which the Bald Eagles were unable to capitalize on thanks to Southern’s stout defense.

After the scoreless first half, the Tigers got on the scoreboard first with an 11-play, 50-yard drive to open the second half, capped by a one-yard touchdown run by Garrett Garcia, who finished with 89 yards on 18 carries. The drive followed a 23-yard kickoff return by Brayden Andrews on a short kick to start Southern at midfield and featured all running plays.

Bald Eagle’s defense forced the Tigers into a three-and-out following Southern’s initial touchdown, and then stopped the Tigers on another three-and-out after the first drive was extended by a roughing the kicker penalty on a punt.

From there, it was time for Louden Murphy to take control of the game. Southern took over at its own 41 following a Bald Eagle punt on the first play of the fourth quarter, and after a holding penalty pushed them back 10 yards and an incomplete pass, Murphy took the ball on a handoff on a reverse and patiently waited around the line of scrimmage for blocks to materialize, then burst through the hole and broke a couple of tackles before turning on the jets and outrunning the rest of the defense for a 69-yard touchdown run to put the Tigers up 12-0 at the 11:03 mark of the fourth quarter.

The Bald Eagles then drove down to the Southern 39 before turning it over on downs. Three plays later, on the same reverse play as the previous one that produced a touchdown, Murphy once again took the handoff and this time sprung around the right end, helped by a block by quarterback Blake Wise, and found the corner and then turned on the jets once again to burst down the right sideline for a 55-yard touchdown, putting the Tigers up 18-0 with 6:31 remaining in the game, and giving him 143 rushing yards on the night on 12 carries.

“I thought the backs were running a little tentative in the first half,” said Roth. “Sometimes, you get in a game like this and guys will get a little tight and I didn’t think they were relaxed and cutting loose, but in the second half, I think they just ran more instinctive and just cut loose and went and they weren’t looking as much. Granted, there wasn’t a lot of room, but there’s a lot of times when there isn’t a lot of room and they still make something happen. We weren’t aggressive running the ball in the first half and looking a little too much, and they were good enough in the way they were pursuing defensively that it was hurting us. We just needed to play our game and be physical and aggressive, and that’s something we talked about at halftime and we did a better job in the second half.

“Overall, I’m pleased with how our guys responded, especially in the second half. That’s two weeks in a row now where we’ve been in a real battle and they showed some good character by coming out and stepping it up in the second half.

“They’re a great football team. They came out after halftime and made a couple of adjustments and then we readjusted after that and shut them down and then he (Murphy) was dead in the water but three guys unfortunately didn’t bring him down and that sometimes happens that way – that’s football,” said Nagle. “He just made a play, and we unfortunately did not. He’s a speedster and broke a couple of tackles and went. If we bring him down there, it’s fourth down and we get the ball back, so sometimes that happens but it doesn’t take anything away from our defensive effort. We shut them down almost, except for those two big plays.”

Refusing to quit despite being down by three scores, the Bald Eagles, which had run just eight plays in Southern territory in the game to that point, put together an 80-yard drive capped by Carson Nagle’s 15-yard touchdown pass to Cameron Watkins with 3:30 left. Gavin Burns then hit Kahale Burns for the two-point conversion.

Nagle completed 6-of-7 passes on that drive, and the Bald Eagles were also aided by a pair of defensive penalties by the Tigers. The junior signal caller put a cap on his outstanding sophomore season by completing 28-of-48 passes for 185 yards, despite being under duress for a good portion of the night from Southern’s pass rush. Even still, Nagle managed to eclipse the 3,500-yard passing mark for the season, and his touchdown pass gave him 38 for the season.

“They went man-under two and we were still making completions, but they have a great defensive line and they did a great job getting pressure after pressure,” said Nagle. “I think if we had a little more time we could have picked them apart but that’s what makes them so good, that front four.”

The Bald Eagles had appeared to recover an onside kick following their touchdown but were called for an offside penalty. Murphy ran back the second kickoff for a touchdown, but that was called back due to a holding penalty. Southern would go three-and-out and punt the ball back to Bald Eagle with 2:18 remaining, and Nagle drove the Bald Eagles from their own 25 to the Southern 18 in the waning seconds of the game, but the clock expired before they were able to score again.

Illustrating how tough Southern’s defense was once again on, the Tigers allowed 212 total yards for the game, but 102 of them came on Bald Eagle’s final two drives of the game – the 80-yard touchdown drive, and then its final possession down by two scores with just two minutes left. So, prior to the 6:31 mark of the fourth quarter – when they were already up 18-0 – Southern’s defense had allowed just 111 yards to a very prolific offense.

 

Southern Columbia 18, Bald Eagle Area 8

Bald Eagle Area (12-2)         0  0  0  8  –  8

Southern Columbia (13-1)    0  0  6 12 – 18

 

Third quarter 

7:09 – (SC) Garrett Garcia 1-yard run (run failed), 11-50, 4:51

 

Fourth quarter

11:03 – (SC) Louden Murphy 69-yard run (run failed), 2-59, :46

6:31 – (SC) Louden Murphy 55-yard run (pass failed), 3-61, 1:41

3:30 – (BEA) Cameron Watkins 15-yard pass from Carson Nagle (Burns pass from Burns), 7-80, 3:01

Statistics
                                                     BEA                       SC
First downs                                    17                            10

Rushes-net yards                       17-27                       39-281

Passing yardage                          185                             6

Passing                                    28-49-1-1                   3-9-0-0

Fumbles-lost                                 0-0                            5-2

Penalties-yards                            6-55                          9-87

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Bald Eagle Area: Cameron Dubbs (9-20), Carson Nagle (4-(-18)), Nicholas Wible (2-21), Cameron Watkins (1-6), TEAM (1-(-2)); Southern Columbia: Garrett Garcia (18-89-1), Louden Murphy (12-143-2), Carter Madden (9-49)

PASSING: Bald Eagle Area: Carson Nagle (28-48-185-1-1), TEAM (0-1-0-0-0); Southern Columbia: Blake WIse (3-9-6-0-0)

RECEIVING: Bald Eagle Area: Kahale Burns (10-45), Gavin Burns (9-64), Cameron Watkins (6-57-1), Beau Taylor (2-6), Wyatt Spackman (1-13); Southern Columbia: Garrett Garcia (2-5), Kyle Christman (1-1)

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