PORT ALLEGANY – Port Allegany found its rhythm in the second quarter, grinding out a big 34-14 win over Cameron County.
Port Allegany got the ball to start the game and looked good, driving the length of the field to score and go up 8-0. Blaine Moses took a handoff 44 yards before being tackled to put Port in excellent field position. A few plays later he ran it in up the middle to give the Gators a 6-0 lead while Noah Archer punched in the two-point conversion out of the wildcat formation. Outside of that drive, the first quarter was slow for both teams, ending in a punt from CC to Port.
The second quarter was better for both offenses. Port embarked on a nine-play drive, going 61-yards and scoring on a 16-yard touchdown run by Archer to take a 14-0 lead. The scoring took a break until there was 4:51 left on the game clock. From there, four touchdowns were scored as each team found paydirt twice, as if refusing to be the one to lose momentum going into half.
Dylan Rieder had a 14-yard touchdown run to emphasize an 11-play drive to give the Red Raiders their first points of the night. Then Port answered with a score of their own, going on an 80-yard drive while leaving 1:57 left on the clock.
On the second possession of the ensuing CC drive, quarterback Maddox Baughman fired a dart to Devin Fowler who caught it for a 15-yard gain in traffic, then took it another 45-yards for a touchdown to cut the lead to 20-14.
That left just a minute in the half. The Gators had the ball at their own 33-yard line. Gators quarterback Drew Evens took the snap, looked for an open man, kept looking, kept looking, the rush came in, Archer was wide open, standing by himself 20-yards downfield. Evens was scrambling to his right, the rush coming at him, he hurled the ball 30-yards before being pushed out-of-bounds and managed to hit Archer, who turned around and outran the desperate defensive backs to race another 30-yards into the endzone for the final touchdown of the half.
Neither team would score in the third quarter. Both squads exchanged time-consuming drives that ended in punts. Port got the ball back towards the end of the third and ran a few plays before beginning the fourth quarter.
Methodically marching down the field to chew five minutes off the fourth quarter clock, the Gators ran the ball up the gut repetitively to great success. After a crucial conversion catch by Moses, Port ran the rock again, capping the drive off with a six-yard touchdown run where Moses went into the endzone untouched to ice the game for Port Allegany.
The Gators looked powerful in the trenches and yet they started multiple freshmen.
“We were missing our starting center (Carson Neely) tonight,” said head coach Justin Bienkowski. “And (Miska) Young bumped down, and (Payton) Yaeger just played well, it’s such a family unit with those guys… Defensive line wise, we had another hole, (Juuso) Young came in and played both ways as a freshman for us. I was very, very happy the way our guys stepped up (and) didn’t make excuses.”
It would have been easy to make an excuse about Rieder, he was easily the best player for CC, breaking tackles, refusing to go down after first contact and outrunning defenders.
“I just told him going to the line (for handshakes),” Bienkowski said. “You deserve any kind of accolades, any type of recognition… He’s a heckuva football player and a pain to game plan for. He’s downhill in everything he does, (we) started squibbing in the second half cause everytime he touched he was one tackle away, one broken tackle away from taking it to the house.”
The squibs worked and so did the message the coaching staff made at half.
“Coach Saltman asked for a shutout at halftime and that’s what happened,” said Bienkowski. “And Coach Lowery, his offensive calls were phenomenal.”
Port Allegany has had a tough road just to get in the race for playoff contention, but Friday might have sealed the deal.
“Good team win,” said Bienkowski. “Two weeks ago we said just keep grinding, we can’t win two at a time we can only win one at a time. And this just sets us up, we’re .500 now. But there’s no time to waste. I told the guys ‘Go enjoy the weekend,’ but Kane is as well coached as they come. And their kids play physical and play hard and it’s on our field, just another chance to play and we’re looking forward to it.”
