Cancellations, postponements and schedule changes have so far marred the beginning of the 2020 football season for the five local Centre high school teams.
All four Mountain League teams — Penns Valley, Bellefonte, Bald Eagle Area and Philipsburg-Osceola — have all been affected in varying degrees, and State College will just be starting its schedule on Friday with a Mid-Penn contest at powerful Central Dauphin.
Things, however, might be starting to normalize as all five are scheduled to be in action this week, and they all face stiff challenges.
Here’s a brief look at each scheduled game:
PENNS VALLEY (0-1) AT BELLEFONTE (0-2)
OCT. 2, BELLEFONTE
Something has to give as both Bellefonte and Penns Valley will be looking for their first win when they meet in Bellefonte on Friday night.
After two tough losses to resurgent league teams Tyrone and Central, the Red Raiders will be looking to finally break through against PV.
Penns Valley is 0-1 this season and has been idle the past two weeks after an opening-night, 27-0 loss at Clearfield.
So far, Bellefonte has played two solid games, but the Raiders were unable to pull out a win in either one.
Two weeks ago, 2-0 Central took an early 14-0 lead and ultimately held on for a 26-14 win.
Central quarterback Jeff Hoenstine passed for three touchdowns and ran for another as he accounted for all of the Red Dragons scoring in the game.
It was Hoenstine’s 1-yard sneak with just over six minutes to play that iced the game for the Dragons.
Bellefonte’s offense gained more than 340 yards on the night almost evenly distributed between pass and run. Quarterback Ethan Rossman threw for 160 yards and a touchdown and ran for 61 yards and another touchdown.
But the Raiders turned the ball over five times in the game, something the Raiders can’t repeat against the Rams.
For Penns Valley, this will be almost like starting all over. The Rams haven’t played since Week 1’s loss to Clearfield, a game in which they introduced an almost entirely new offense.
It was no easy task for PV to take on league powerhouse Clearfield in its first game of the season. The Rams are in rebuilding mode after losing a ton of seniors from last year’s team, and it showed against the Bison.
Clearfield quarterback Oliver Billotte threw for 210 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 57 yards and two more scores in a 27-0 victory over PV.
Billotte scored the first two touchdowns of the night on short runs, giving the Bison an early 14-0 lead. He then hit receiver Karson Kline for a TD pass late in the second quarter to give his team a 21-0 halftime lead.
Another touchdown pass to Kline in the fourth quarter ended the scoring for the night.
Penns Valley managed just over 100 yards of offense in the game, with quarterback Aidan Brinker completing 8-of-17 passes for 44 yards.
Now, the Rams will have to deal with a two-week layoff as well as breaking in new players at key positions on offense and defense.
The Raiders have been close in two games against good teams. Yet turnovers hurt, and Hoenstine made them count for Central. The key to the game for Bellefonte, then, would be to take care of the ball and pressure PV’s young players.
TYRONE (2-0) AT BALD EAGLE AREA (1-1)
OCT. 2 (SENIOR NIGHT), WINGATE
Bald Eagle Area lost big to Central in Week 1 of the new season, but the Eagles bounced back nicely against Huntingdon in Week 2.
BEA fell behind early to the Bearcats after a 90-yard pick-6 in the first quarter put the Bearcats ahead 6-0.
That would pretty much be Huntingdon’s only highlight of the night.
The Bald Eagles — led by quarterback Garrett Burns —stormed back with 26 unanswered points in the second quarter before giving up a late safety.
The outburst was spearheaded by Burns — he ran for two touchdowns of 41 and 3 yards and then passed for two more.
The first TD pass was a 76-yarder to Owin Irvin and the second was from 21 yards out to Cameron Watkins. The pass to Watkins gave the Eagles a 26-6 lead.
BEA didn’t let up in the second half. Burns scored on another run in the third quarter, and then Hayden Vaughn and Max Yetsko scored on short runs to make the final score 46-8.
In all, Burns passed for 246 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 81 yards and another three scores.
The win evened the Eagles’ record to 1-1 a set up a big home meeting against resurgent Tyrone on Friday night.
The Golden Eagles are 2-0 and have impressive wins over Bellefonte (21-13) and Huntingdon (51-14).
Tyrone is led by a triple-threat of three senior skill people who have been tearing it up. Dual-threat senior quarterback Brandon Lucas has so far thrown for 316 yards and four touchdowns and run for another 124 yards and two touchdowns.
Also in the backfield with Lucas is senior running back Tommy Hicks. Hicks has scored three touchdowns and he’s run the ball 19 times for 122 yards.
And at wide receiver, senior Damon Gripp has had eight catches for 200 yards and three touchdowns.
Together, the three have brought the Eagles back from a very disappointing 2019 season and back into league contention.
BEA will have its hands full with those three while at the same time trying to keep improving after the big Huntingdon victory.
Look for a lot of points in this one.
PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA (1-1) AT CLEARFIELD (2-0)
OCT. 2, CLEARFIELD
Central’s 20-0 second quarter outburst broke open a close game at Philipsburg-Osceola last week and put the Dragons on track for a 40-14 win over the Mounties.
P-O, however, down 26-0 at halftime, kept playing. The Mounties scored twice in the second half on an 80-yard kickoff return by Hunter Weitoish and a 25-yard run by Kaleb Stamm.
But Central’s sophomore quarterback Jeff Hoenstine was just too much to overcome. Hoenstine threw for 300 yards and four touchdowns and scrambled for another 35 yards on the ground.
All four of Hoenstine’s touchdown passes came in the first half.
Still, P-O racked up 14 first downs and gained 179 yards rushing, both things the Mounties can build on as the season progresses.
This week, however, will not be any easy one for P-O against arch-rival Clearfield.
Clearfield is 1-0 so far, but the Bison have not played for two weeks.
That first win came in Week 1 — a 27-0 rout over Penns Valley. In that game, quarterback Oliver Billotte scored all four Bison touchdowns, two running and two through the air.
He completed 17-of-30 passes for 222 yards and ran for another 56 yards. In all, Clearfield amassed 374 yards of offense against the Rams and allowed the Rams just 106 yards total.
P-O obviously had problems against Central and Hoenstine, and Billotte will present many of the same problems. What is unknown is how much the Bison will be affected by the long layoff and how much of an advantage the Mounties will have after playing last week.
How well P-O can shore up its pass defense against the Bison’s attack will tell the story in this game.
STATE COLLEGE (0-0) AT CENTRAL DAUPHIN (1-0)
OCT. 2, HARRISBURG
Usually, the game between Mid Penn titans State College and Central Dauphin comes later in the season and has the conference championship hanging in the balance. But this year, it will be the Little Lions’ first game of the season and the second for CD.
State College is coming off another solid season in 2019 when the Little Lions went 11-2 overall and 6-1 in the Mid-Penn Conference (2nd place). The Lions made another trip to the PIAA State Tournament, beating Delaware Valley in its first game but then losing a heartbreaker to Pittsburgh Central Catholic, 24-21, in the state quarterfinal.
The bad news for SC coming into the new season is that most of the Lions’ top skill people from last season graduated, including quarterback Brady Dorner, running back Isaiah Edwards, running back Lokey Howell, and tight end Nate Lusk.
The good news is that the top running back Dresyn Green will return to the SC backfield.
Green ran the ball 196 times for 1204 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2019, and he also caught 14 passes for another 111 yards. Adding in his kick and punt return yardage, Green finished with 1,576 all-purpose yards for the season.
As usual, with a roster of more than 110 players, State College will have players lined up to fill the open positions, but for at least early in the season, handing the ball to Green seems like a good option.
State College was originally set to open the season on Sept. 11 against Hollidaysburg, but that game and the subsequent games against Chambersburg and CD East have been postponed.
Instead, SC will now begin its season against Central Dauphin in Harrisburg on Friday.
Central Dauphin got its season off to a strong start with a 62-10 win over Chambersburg on Sept. 25.
The Rams scored in double figures every quarter in the game, went ahead 27-10 at the half, and then cruised in from there.
They racked up 657 yards of offense — 422 on the ground and 235 in the air — and moved the ball at will all night.
Quarterback Max Mosey completed 11 passes for 235 yards and four touchdowns, while the running game featured three backs who all gained over 80 yards. Senior Shamarr Joppy led the group with seven carries for 132 yards and a touchdown.
Timmy Smith, another senior, caught four passes for 122 yards and three touchdowns.
In all, the Rams looked to be in mid-season form right out of the gate, and they will be a giant challenge for the Lions as they take the field for their first game.
Video by Christopher Hess for the Centre County Report.
