After giving up 69 points and over 700 yards of offense to Brookville in last week’s season-opening loss, the Bradford defense had something to prove coming into its home opener against St. Marys.
The Owls showed up big time on Friday night as they got their first win of the season, defeating the Dutch 14-2 at Parkway Field.
“I think the way the defense came back from last week was really impressive,” Owls coach Jeff Puglio said. “A lot of people were criticizing our defense after Brookville — we took that personally. They came out here and they basically pitched a shutout; the defense didn’t give up any points.”
Indeed, St. Marys’ only points in the contest came on a safety in the third quarter. For the game, Bradford’s defense allowed just 124 yards to the Dutch, while also coming up with a number of big fourth down stops.
The Owls’ offense — which scored 60 points itself against Brookville last week — stumbled a bit on Friday due to several fumbles and a number of costly penalties.
But Bradford’s running game, particularly senior Donny Pattison, did enough damage to complement the outstanding play of its defense. The Owls racked up 229 rushing yards in the game, with Pattison leading the way with 151 yards on 13 carries while also adding 55 yards on three catches.
Jaron Ambrose and Derek Sunafrank ran for 46 and 31 yards, respectively.
“Our running backs are running really hard,” Puglio said, though added that the run game still has room for improvement: “I think we’ve got to work on our outside blocking; that was an issue tonight. We’re going to see teams start sending more pressure in. We’ve just got to get better at those outside edge blocks and we should be fine.”
The running and blocking looked good in the first quarter when Pattison took a sweep play 81 yards for a touchdown to give Bradford an early 7-0 lead.
Ambrose would score early in the second quarter on a 12-yard scamper to make it 14-0.
But for as good as the Owls looked at times, they were unable to build on that advantage due to issues with holding onto the ball (four total fumbles, two lost) and penalties (six in the game).
Key amongst these miscues was when Ambrose had what would’ve been a 65-yard scoring run called back on a holding penalty near the end of the half.
Despite shooting themselves in the foot on offense, the Owls defense continued to hold firm in the second half.
After recovering their second fumble of the game the Dutch were driving into Bradford territory and eventually got down to the one-yard line. But despite trying back-to-back sneak plays with QB Todd Taylor, St. Marys couldn’t get those three feet due to the stout effort of the Bradford defensive front.
The Owls would come up with another big fourth down stop in their own end near the end of the third quarter to keep the Dutch offense off the scoreboard.
Coming off his unit’s disappointing showing last week, seeing his defenders bear down when it mattered most had to be a welcome sight for Puglio.
“That’s critical for us, getting off the field on third and fourth down,” he explained. “That goal line stand was impressive. That was our guys digging in and refusing to back down and I was really impressed by that. We need to see more of that.”
However, the Owls offense wouldn’t go far after its first fourth down stand. In fact, Bradford went backwards into their own end zone as St. Marys forced a safety to get on the board.
But St. Marys was unable to capitalize on that potential momentum swing, as its offense was continually stonewalled by the Owls on the ground, and eventually through the air when Taylor (who finished with just 42 yards passing) was forced to heave the ball downfield.
Bradford’s offense picked up enough first downs to run out the clock and secure the oh-so-important first win of the season.
Coming off a humbling 42-0 season-opening loss to Ridgway, St. Marys coach Tony Defilippi, while disappointed with the final result, was heartened to see his team play with a little more determination this week.
“I’m really proud of the efforts of our kids,” Defilippi said. “They came here and played really, really hard, and really showed that what we did last week was not indicative of who we are, against a very good Bradford team. I mean they scored 60 points last week, and we were able to play some solid defense. We’ve got to get our offense going a little bit, but we had opportunities.”
St. Marys (0-2) will host Brockway (2-0) next Friday.
The Owls (1-1), meanwhile, won’t be playing until Saturday when they head to Kane (0-2), who will be coming off a 34-6 loss to Ridgway last night.
While it may not be the same Kane team that dominated the old Allegheny Mountain League the past few years, Puglio knows that, in the new Large School format, no team can be taken for granted.
“It’s just the next opponent,” he said. “The schedule doesn’t let up. We don’t worry about records. We’re going to Kane, which is a tough place to play, so we’ve gotta have a good week of practice.”
BY QUARTERS
St. Marys 0 0 2 0—2
Bradford 7 7 0 0—14
TEAM STATISTICS
First Downs: SM 8, BHS 9; Rushes/Yards Rushing: SM: 37-82, BHS: 34-229; Yards Passing: SM: 42, BHS 55; Comp-Att-Int: SM: 5-14-0, BHS: 3-7-0; Penalties: SM: 3-15, BHS: 6-65; Fumbles-Lost: SM: 3-1, BHS: 4-2; Total Yards: SM: 124, BHS: 284; Offensive Plays: SM: 51, BHS: 42
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Passing: SM: Todd Taylor 5-14-42-0-0 ; BHS: Nate Blauser 3-7-55-0-0
Rushing: SM: Forest Cressley 7-18, Cain Pfoutz 10-47, Todd Taylor 8-(-9), Jacob Kline 7-6, Devin McGrath 2-4, Cody Ritter 2-14, Jackson McClain 1-2; BHS: Donny Pattison 13-151-1, Derek Sunafrank 7-31, Jaron Ambrose 8-46-1, Nate Blauser 4-(-14), Patrick Caskey 2-15
Receiving: SM: Mitchell Reiter 4-35, Cain Pfoutz 1-7; BHS: Donny Pattison 3-55
Scoring summary
First quarter
Brad: Donny Pattison, 81-yard run (Caleb Nuzzo PAT), 6:25
Second quarter
Brad: Jaron Ambrose, 12-yard run (Caleb Nuzzo PAT), 10:39
Third quarter
SM: Safety, 4:19
