BERWICK — Like he was shot out of a cannon, Berwick’s Everett Snyder fired into the Lackawanna Trail backfield as soon as the ball was snapped. The nose guard didn’t beat the snap to the quarterback, but he sure beat the quarterback to the handoff spot.
Everett jumped on Tyler Jervis’ back as if was was Jervis’ backpack, dragging him to the ground before he could even reach out his right hand to try and hand off the football.
The third-down play by Snyder on the third snap of the second half of Friday night’s matchup of unbeatens at Crispin Field was typical of the Berwick defense in a 33-12 statement win over Lackawanna Trail. The Bulldogs neutralized the Lions’ vaunted Wing-T offense which took them to the state quarterfinals a year ago by consistently penetrating Trail’s offensive line and blowing up plays before they started.
Snyder and J.J. Leonard were the main culprits, disrupting the Lions’ offense like an air horn in a library. Of Trail’s 36 carries, 22 went for 2 yards or fewer a year after averaging 8 yards a carry against the Dawgs.
And on the flip side, Berwick running back Ty Wilkerson ran for 237 yards and three touchdowns, his second consecutive week over 200 yards. Berwick improved to 3-0 for the first time since 2019, and the Dawgs made a statement in the way they controlled Trail.
Is Berwick back? Who knows. It’s going to take more than three weeks to answer that question. But everything sure looks to be on the upswing.
“These guys weren’t OK with losing last year. They weren’t OK with getting their butts kicked like we did for the first four weeks of last season,” Berwick coach C.J. Curry said. “The effort and the energy and the love they have for each other, and the sacrifices they made this offseason getting bigger, stronger, faster, it’s starting to show.”
This was the game Berwick could bookmark to really see how far they’ve come. Berwick beat up on its first two opponents, outscoring Lake-Lehman and Mid-Valley a combined 66-7. But this Lackawanna Trail team brings back a host of players who were a two-point conversion stop from being in the Class A state semifinals a year ago.
Berwick won the game up front last night. Not only did they discombobulate Trail’s offense, the Berwick offensive line pushed around the Lions. Take away Wilkerson’s 81-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and the senior still averaged better than 6 yards a carry. Curry is so confident in his stronger, more physical running game that he went for it on fourth down on Berwick’s opening drive of the game from his own 41-yard line.
Wilkerson broke off a 12-yard run to convert that first down and, six plays later, freshman quarterback Brady Cleaver hit Alex Estrella in stride for a 32-yard touchdown pass. It was the only throw of the 67-yard scoring drive. In fact, Berwick controlled the football game with its running offense. Of its 50 offensive snaps, 44 were runs. Other than a pair of kneeldowns to close out the game, only one run play went for negative yardage, and that didn’t happen until the fourth quarter when the game was in hand.
“Every single person was in the weight room every single day this offseason,” said Leonard, Berwick’s left tackle. “We got a lot stronger. We knew we needed to improve in every single aspect of our game, but that one aspect was the most important.”
“We knew what we wanted our identity to be, and we knew what we had to do to be that,” said Wilkerson, who has already run for 587 yards this year. “We knew we had to get in the weight room to be a more physical team on offense and defense.”
A year ago, Berwick allowed 290 rushing yards in a 35-0 loss to Lackawanna Trail. They looked to be in trouble after Trail all-state running back Isaac Ryon went 67 yards for a touchdown on his third carry of the night. But the Bulldogs allowed only one first down over the next 20 minutes of game time.
Berwick controlled the clock, holding a 34-14 advantage in offensive plays in the first half as it built a 14-6 lead. And when Trail did have the ball, there was almost nowhere to go.
When Snyder, a converted linebacker who is now excelling at nose guard, jumped on Jervis’ back to end the Lions’ first drive of the second half, it led to Berwick getting the ball on the Trail side of the field. Two plays later, Wilkerson took a handoff on a stretch play to the left, and cut back to the open field to the right to go 38 yards for his second touchdown run.
Cleaver added a 27-yard touchdown on a keeper up the middle to open the fourth quarter. Berwick ran for 328 yards at 7.5 yards a carry last night. A year ago, Berwick ran for just 90 yards at just over 3 yards a clip in the loss.
“Four of our five guys on the offensive line are in our 1,000-pound club in the weight room,” Curry said. “They’re confident playing with each other, and they love running the football. This is the culmination of the work that they’ve put in and the bond they have together. They’ve bought in to what we’re trying to do offensively.”
Ryon tried to will the Lions into the game. He had runs of 67, 29 and 27 yards last night. But he averaged just 3 yards a carry on his other 12 totes. Lions running back Sean Dwyer averaged more than 5 yards a carry in Trail’s first two games. Only two of his six carries last night went for positive yards.
“Man, our coaches put us in great position to make plays,” said Leonard, who plays defensive end. “All of us on the defensive line grew up together, and we just have such great chemistry playing together.”
“That was classic Berwick defense,” Curry said. “These guys understand so much more now how to read keys and how to disrupt things. They’ve bought in on understanding our scheme defensively and they went out and executed it.”
Berwick 33, Lackawanna Trail 12
Lackawanna Trail 6 0 0 6 – 12
Berwick 7 7 6 13 – 33
First quarter
B—Alex Estrella 32 pass from Brady Cleaver (Caleb Yost kick), 6:27
LT—Isaac Ryon 67 run (kick failed), 3:38
Second quarter
B—Ty Wilkerson 2 run (Yost kick), 6:44
Third quarter
B—Wilkerson 38 run (pass failed), 8:59
Fourth quarter
B—Cleaver 27 run (kick failed), 11:20
B—Wilkerson 81 run (Yost kick), 8:44
LT—Tyler Jervis 3 run (kick failed), 3:19
LT Ber
First downs 8 16
Rushes-yds 36-188 44-328
Com-att-int 2-3-0 2-6-0
Pass yards 33 38
Total yards 221 366
Fumbles-lost 5-1 0-0
Penalties-yards 1-0 8-30
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing—Lackawanna Trail, Isaac Ryon 15-160, TD; Carter Edwards, 7-22; Tyler Jervis, 8-10, TD; Sean Dwyer, 6-(-4). Berwick, Ty Wilkerson, 26-237, 3 TDs; Brady Cleaver, 7-50; Gavin Galutia, 5-15; Conner Roberts, 1-15; Ashton Smith, 2-11; Everett Snyder, 1-4; Team, 2-(-4).
Passing—Lackawanna Trail, Jervis, 2-3-0, 33 yds. Berwick, Cleaver, 2-5-0, 38 yds., TD; Team 0-1-0.
Receiving—Lackawanna Trail, Ryon 1-29; Dwyer, 1-4. Berwick, Alex Estrella, 1-32, TD; Shiloh Escobar, 1-6.
INTERCEPTIONS—None.
RECORDS: Lackawanna Trail (2-1); Berwick (3-0).