KANE — Don’t look now, but the Kane Wolves are hitting on all cylinders.
Kane started slowly, but a defense that allowed under 20 total yards coupled with a 21-point second-quarter led the undefeated Wolves (7-0) over visiting Bradford in a 41-0 win.
For the second-straight week, Kane used the formula of power-running by Erik DeLong and the over-the-top connection of quarterback Reed Williams and receiver Ray Maze to success. Four minutes before halftime, Williams (13-for-17, 158 yards, two touchdowns) capped a three-play drive by hitting Maze (five catches, 70 yards) in stride for a 55-yard catch-and-run touchdown.
“Ray running away from people is pretty impressive,” Wolves head coach Todd Silfies said. “Another big game from him. That’s the Ray that we expect week in and week out.”
DeLong had another big day on the ground going over the thousand-yard mark for the season and grinding out 163 yards on 21 carries with two touchdowns as the Wolves rushed for 225 yards. When DeLong wasn’t carrying between the tackles, Kane’s trio of change-of-pace backs in Austin Labesky, Frank Truden and Ange Costanzo (four carries, 70 yards combined) gained big chunks of yardage on the flanks.
Couple those four running backs with the aerial raid of Williams, Maze and receiver Davis Gardner (three catches, 28 yards, touchdown) and the Kane offense looks to be clicking at just the right time.
“You’ve got Ray who can run by you,” Silfies said, “Davis who’s a great route-runner and does some things and these wrinkles of Ange and Frank are awesome to have. And Austin Labesky, I don’t think you leave him out since he’s a pretty darn good runner too.”
Kane led just 7-0 after the first quarter, but two DeLong touchdowns and Maze’s score had the Wolves up 28-0 at halftime. Gardner and Costanzo added scores to set the PIAA’s Mercy Rule into effect just before the end of the third quarter.
As much as Friday night showed Kane’s might, it also showed two teams trending in opposite directions.
Bradford’s offensive woes continued as the Owls (3-4) have lost their first three Allegheny Mountain League South Division games and haven’t scored in 10-straight quarters. Worse yet, the offensive unit punted on its first 10 possessions before the junior varsity squad turned the ball over on downs inside the Kane 10-yard line late in the fourth quarter.
“Our kids are trying,” Bradford head coach Jeff Puglio said, “but teams like this that are going to be more physical and more aggressive, we have to rely on our technique, and we’re not doing that. It’s back to the basics with it.”
The Owls, who lost another starter to injury Friday, couldn’t get anything on offense.
“They’re a good team,” Puglio said. “Again, we had more injuries to deal with tonight. They were physical, they were aggressive. We weren’t.”
Kane’s defensive line bottled up running back Donny Pattison (six carries, two yards), Mitch Vleminckx (six carries, negative-14 yards; one catch, 17 yards) and dropped quarterback Kyle Kirk (four rushes, negative-42 yards) multiple times. Derek Sunafrank, who came on in the fourth quarter, was the Owls’ leading rusher with 20 yards on six attempts.
The road doesn’t get easier for Bradford, which travels south to Brockway (7-0) to take on the undefeated Rovers next Friday.
Kane, meanwhile, plays at Ridgway (6-1), an opponent and location that has given the Wolves fits over the years no matter the talent-level of the Elkers.
“It’s a tough place to play,” Silfies said. “Ridgway is a very well-coached football team on both sides of the ball. They have a great program going on over there with what Coach [Mark] Heindl is doing. It doesn’t matter who we are coming into the game, it doesn’t matter who they are coming into the game, it’s going to be a really, really tight football game.”
