Wilkes Barre moves to 4-2 with 34-14 win at Crestwood

Written by: Mitch Rupert on Saturday, September 30th, 2023. Follow Mitch Rupert on Twitter.

MOUNTAIN TOP — Crestwood finally had some momentum Friday night when its long touchdown pass tied the score with Wilkes-Barre in the second quarter. The Comets’ offense was clicking, scoring on two of its last three possessions and now back at square one with a Wolfpack squad in the midst of a winning streak, it felt like things were starting to finally go Crestwood’s way.

Then Wilkes-Barre’s Howie Shiner ripped off a 42-yard run into the red zone. On the next snap, Davon Underwood hopped out of a couple tackles and found his way to the end zone. All the momentum Crestwood had built was stopped dead in its tracks, like a car crashing into a brick wall.

Underwood’s touchdown run gave the Wolfpack a lead it never again relinquished. They won for the fourth consecutive week, this time 34-14 over the defending District 2 champs. Quarterback Jake Howe was brilliant again for Wilkes-Barre, throwing for 183 yards and a touchdown, and the Wolfpack defense stymied a Crestwood run game which has been so potent the last two weeks.

“That was a great team effort,” Wilkes-Barre coach Ciro Cinti said. “Our defense was prepared. We knew if we were able to get them in passing situations, we had a much better shot of winning. Against a good running team, you have to make them uncomfortable. We stopped their run.”

Wilkes-Barre won by at least two scores for the fourth consecutive week as it improved to 4-2 this year. Cinti said there was no secret to how the Wolfpack have won over the last four weeks. Nor did he say there has been any big change in how the team has gone about its business.

But he did point to another complete four-quarter effort which saw the Wolfpack roll up 390 yards of offense while holding Crestwood to just 3.3 yards per carry.

“We played for four quarters,” Cinti said. “That’s the long and short of it. When you play good defense and play four quarters, good things happen.”

“They made plays. Give coach Cinti and his staff a lot of credit,” Crestwood coach Ryan Arcangeli said. “They prepared them like crazy. They plan they had was a good one, and their kids executed it.”

Wilkes-Barre found a rhythm quickly offensively in the first half, and Crestwood found ways to answer. When Jaden Shedlock executed a perfect play fake and found Matt Sklarosky open on the post for a 38-yard score, the Comets tied the game for the second time in the first half, 14-14.

But that’s when Wilkes-Barre’s offense stole the momentum back with a two-play drive which covered 56 yards, the last 14 of which were Underwood’s scoring run. The Wolfpack continually found openings on the edge which sprung Shiner (15 carries, 159 yards) running untouched into the secondary.

After Underwood’s tie-breaking run, Shiner had runs of 14, 8 and 34 yards before pounding the football into the end zone from 6 yards out to give the Wolfpack a 26-14 halftime lead. Shiner averaged better than 10 yards per carry and had seven of his 15 runs go for at least 8 yards.

“Howie’s been doing that for four years,” Cinti said. “He’s a great downhill runner and that’s why he’s one of our captains.”

“It’s tough, it felt like within a blink they’re back up on us, and it was because of big plays off the edge,” Arcangeli said. “It was nothing we didn’t prepare for, it was just their kids making a play. I have to put our guys in position to have success. I didn’t do that well enough.”

Just to complement that running game which eclipsed 200 yards for Wilkes-Barre, sophomore quarterback Jake Howe again had a strong performance. Howe completed 10 of 13 passes for 151 yards and a touchdown in the first half. He added another touchdown strike in the second half.

Over the Wolfpack’s four-game winning streak, Howe has no completed 66% of his passes for 755 yards, nine touchdowns and only one interception. Last night he remained poised in the pocket, threw with confidence and even more accuracy.

Howe threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Evan Laybourn-Boddie, and an 11-yard scoring pass to Treyvon Gembitski, who also had a pair of interceptions on defense.

“He’s getting comfortable out there,” Cinti said. “He’s maturing more. He’s seeing the field better. He made the one play because he was moving, but his eyes were downfield. He’s getting better.”

“He’s a good, young player,” Arcangeli said. “I’m really impressed by him.”

On the other side of the ball, the Wilkes-Barre defense held Wyoming Valley Conference rushing leader Jaden Shedlock to just 46 yards on 21 carries. The Wolfpack never let Shedlock get outside of the defense, and when he did scramble they never let him break a big run. Shedlock’s biggest run was just 7 yards, which he did twice.
And with the Crestwood running game not gaining chunk yards the way it did during its two-game winning streak coming into the game, it made it even more difficult for the Comets to pass. After Shedlock’s 38-yard scoring pass to Sklarosky, he completed just two more passes in the game.

“They set an edge offensively and defensively and that’s how football’s won,” Arcangeli said. “They dominated the point of attack. When you do that, you can end up searching for answers for a long time.”

Wilkes-Barre 34, Crestwood 14
Wilkes-Barre 14 12 8 0 – 34
Crestwood 7 7 0 0 – 14
First quarter
WB—Jake Howe 1 run (kick blocked), 8:01
C—Jaden Shedlock 4 run (James Barret kick), 4:26
WB—Evan Laybourn Boddie 7 pass from Howe (Howie Shiner pass from Howe), 3:02
Second quarter
C—Matt Sklarosky 38 pass from Shedlock (Barret kick), 6:52
WB—Davon Underwood 14 run (pass failed), 6:06
WB—Shiner 6 run (pass failed), 2:05
Third quarter
WB—Treyvon Gembitski 11 pass from Howe (Jovan Goodwin pass from Howe), 2:52

WB CR
First downs 18 15
Rushes-yds 30-207 47-156
Com-att-int 15-20-0 6-13-2
Pass yards 183 103
Total yards 390 259
Fumbles-lost 2-1 1-0
Penalties-yards 6-60 7-46
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing—Wilkes-Barre, Howie Shiner, 15-159, TD; Davon Underwood, 10-56, TD; Team, 1-(-1); Jake Howe, 4-(-7), TD. Crestwood, James Barret, 14-55; Colin Lazo, 9-48; Jaden Shedlock, 21-46, TD; Osten Grigas, 2-5; Giovanni Barna, 1-2.

Passing—Wilkes-Barre, Howe, 15-20-0, 183 yds., 2 TDs. Crestwood, Shedlock, 6-13-2, 103 yds., TD.

Receiving—Wilkes-Barre, Evan Laybourn-Boddie, 7-45, TD; Underwood, 3-58; Treyvon Gembitski, 3-54, TD; Jovan Goodwin, 2-26. Crestwood, Matt Sklarosky, 2-43, TD; Barret, 2-43; Lazo, 2-17.

INTERCEPTIONS— Wilkes-Barre, Gembitski (2).

RECORDS: Crestwood (2-4); Wilkes-Barre (4-2).

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