BRADFORD SNAGS THIRD D9 CLASS AAA TITLE IN FOUR YEARS

CLARION (NOV. 7) — Bradford senior speedster Sean Hvizdzak’s name should be in a name hall of fame somewhere.

But one thing is for sure. His performance in Bradford’s come-from-behind 44-30 win over the Bisons in the District 9 Class AAA Championship Friday night at Clarion University is among the best in district playoff history.

Hvizdzak (pronounced Weez-Jack) scored five touchdowns, two of them on 85-yard kick returns and three on runs of 4, 39 and 57 yards. He rushed for 195 yards on 16 carries and his 170 return yards gave him a whopping 375 all-purpose yards.

Come-from-behind win with 44 points? You bet. The Owls scored 35 points in the second half and broke a 23-23 tie in the early moments of the fourth quarter with three touchdowns in a span of three minutes.

"What a second half. Holy mackerel," Bradford head coach Steve Ackerman said.

The fourth-quarter outburst helped make the game the highest scoring championship game in D-9 playoff history. It’s the third highest scoring game overall in the D-9 playoffs.

The win gave Bradford (8-2) its third D-9 title in four years and a berth in the PIAA playoffs this Friday against District 6 champion Huntingdon or Johnstown.

"It feels great," Hvizdzak said. "I just got the ball and my blockers did the job for me. All I had to do was run for it. I didn’t do too much on my own. The blockers did it."

Hvizdzak was referring to his kick returns, but it also applied to his carries as well, especially in the second half. At halftime, he had eight yards on five carries.

"In the second half, the seniors stepped up, our offensive line did a great job and Sean just found the holes, and with his speed, it was just see you later," Ackerman said.

Hvizdzak, who now has three kick and one punt returns for TDs this year, is the defending D-9 Class AAA 100-meter dash champion. After Friday, he’s averaging 30.1 yards per kickoff return.

"I just got the ball and my blockers did the job for me," Hvizdzak said. "All I had to do was run for it. I didn’t do too much on my own; the blockers did it."

"I think we do a pretty good job on our front line in the wedge on the back wall blocking on those," Ackerman said of the kickoff return execution. "All we ask our guys is to find a different colored helmet and get a body on them and let Weez do the rest. He can find the seam if we give it to him. You got to give credit to the guys in front of him."

Hvizdzak’s first 85-yarder perhaps saved the night for the Owls who were lucky to be only trailing 14-9 at intermission. Their only touchdown came on the kickoff return just after the Bisons made it 14-3 late in the second quarter.

The inability to capitalize on a couple of opportunities was foreboding for the Bisons, who finished 7-3.

"I thought we should have been ahead at the half by more than what we were because I thought we outplayed them," Clearfield head coach Tim Janocko said. "The kicking game hurt us and that’s not like us because all year we played a great kicking game."

Bisons junior quarterback Tanner Kelly passed all over the Memorial Field artificial turf against the Owls. Kelly completed 16 of 29 passes for 344 yards, tossing three TD passes to junior wideout Mike Scoggins.

The first two scoring strikes to Scoggins, who caught six balls for 159 yards, covered 25 yards on the opening drive and 12 yards with 2:52 left in the first half.

At that point it was 14-3. Hvizdzak’s return following the Bisons’ score turned a dominating half into one that could have been.

The Bisons were inside the Owls’ 20 twice in the first half and didn’t score. Junior running back Josh Harbold fumbled away the ball at the Owls’ 13 early in the second quarter and the Bisons were stopped on downs at the Owls’ 16 on the drive following Hvizdzak’s kick return.

The final play of the stalled drive was an incomplete pass on a Scoggins’ slant pattern to the inside. He had position, but the defender knocked the pass away. The defender was Hvizdzak. And it was a sign of things to come. Scoggins had just one catch in the second half.

"Scoggins killed us in the first half and it didn’t matter who we had on him," Ackerman said. "He beat us. So we told Sean to stand in the middle of the field when they break huddle and follow No. 12 (Scoggins). We were going to put our best athlete on him. If they were going to beat us, it was going to be with somebody else."

In the Owls’ locker room, a 14-9 halftime deficit was a huge relief.

"We were down 14-9 and we played probably the worst half of football all year except against Bellefonte and we’re only down five points in the district championship game," Ackerman said. "That’s exactly what we told them as coaches (at halftime). All we had to do was pay attention to detail and it’ll take care of itself and it did. We did a great job in the second half."

The Owls, limited to three first downs and 58 yards of offense in the first half, needed only six plays to go 65 yards to score on the opening possession of the second half. The two-point conversion failed and the Owls had their first lead at 15-14.

Clearfield’s inability to finish off a drive spilled over into its first possession of the second half. On the first play following Bradford’s score, Kelly’s shovel pass to Harbold went for 58 yards to the Owls’ 20.

However, four plays and an illegal procedure penalty put the Bisons at the 5 on fourth down. Ryan Johnson came in and drilled the 21-yard field goal to give the Bisons a short-lived 17-15 advantage at the 5:31 mark.

Fourteen seconds later, Hvizdzak struck again, picking up the muffed kickoff that got by teammate Morgan O’Brien and dashing 85 yards. Dave Snyder’s two-point conversion run made it 23-17.

The Bisons tied it at 23-23 on the third play of the fourth quarter when Harbold scored on a 3-yard run. Johnson’s point-after kick missed, which at that point, appeared to be a huge play.

The huge plays, though, came from Bradford in the fourth quarter.

Bradford answered the score with a 7-play, 65-yard drive capped by Hvizdzak’s 39-yard run. That put the Owls up for good at 30-23 with 6:43 remaining.

But they weren’t done. The Owls defense forced two straight Bisons three-and-outs and scored following each one, first on Snyder’s 11-yard run with 4:56 left and then on Hvizdzak’s 57-yarder at the 3:43 mark.

The Bisons set the final margin when Kelly found Scoggins for a 50-yard TD pass on fourth-and-eight with 2:11 remaining.

"It was 23-23 with (over) eight minutes left and we were thinking maybe overtime. The ship just fell in," Janocko said. "We had some big plays go against us. Bradford has a good football team and we just had some things go against us. It doesn’t take anything away from the season we had."

NOTES: All three of the Owls’ D-9 title game victories have come against the Bisons. ... Owls quarterback Mike Austin completed 1 of 2 passes for 29 yards. The completion was big as it came on third-and-9 on the Owls’ first possession of the second half. They scored two plays later. … Harbold finished with 41 yards rushing and 114 receiving. Three receptions were shovel passes totaling 81 yards. … For the season, Kelly finished with 1,837 yards passing, Harbold 1,122 yards rushing and Scoggins 781 yards receiving. All three will be seniors next year. … The highest scoring D-9 playoff game was 92 points, Karns City’s 69-23 win over Moniteau in Class AA last year and the second highest was Smethport’s 55-21 win over Keystone in the 1997 Class A semifinals.

C – Mike Scoggins 25 pass from Tanner Kelly (Ryan Johnson kick), 7:50.

B – Kyle MacFarlane 20 field goal, 9:51.

C – Mike Scoggins 12 pass from Tanner Kelly (Ryan Johnson kick), 2:52.

B – Sean Hvizdzak 85 kick return (run failed), 2:41.

B – Sean Hvizdzak 4 run (run failed), 9:16.

C – Ryan Johnson 21 field goal, 5:31.

B – Sean Hvizdzak 85 kick return (Dave Snyder run), 5:17.

C – Josh Harbold 3 run (kick failed), 10:46.

B – Sean Hvizdzak 39 run (Kyle MacFarlane kick), 6:43.

B – Dave Snyder 11 run (Kyle MacFarlane kick), 4:56.

B – Sean Hvizdzak 57 run (Kyle MacFarlane kick), 3:43.

C – Mike Scoggins 50 pass from Tanner Kelly (Ryan Johnson kick), 2:11.

C B

First Downs 19 10

Rushes-Yards 27-72 45-299

Passing: Comp-Att-Int 16-29-0 1-2-0

Passing Yards 344 29

Total Yards 416 328

Fumbles-lost 2-2 2-0

Punts-Avg. 4-32.8 4-32

Penalties-Yards 5-30 3-29

Rushing – Clearfield: Josh Harbold 12-41, Tanner Kelly 15-31. Bradford: Sean Hvizdzak 16-195, Dave Snyder 18-90, Mike Austin 4-23, Aaron O’Toole 6-(-6), Team 1-(-3).

Passing – Clearfield: Tanner Kelly 16-for-29, 344 yards, 3 TDs. Bradford: Mike Austin 1-for-2, 29 yards.

Receiving – Clearfield: Mike Scoggins 6-159, Josh Harbold 4-114, Nathan Shadeck 3-44, Beau Ryan 2-18, Joe Davis 1-9. Bradford: Jake Wells 1-29.

Sacks – Clearfield: Tim Duke. Bradford: Tyler Arlington 1.5, Jon Colts 1.0, Joe Reinhardt 1.0, Brian Wallace 0.5.

Kick returns – Clearfield: Josh Harbold 3-48, Beau Ryan 1-33, Andrew Crotzer 1-24, Mike Scoggins 1-24. Bradford: Sean Hvizdzak 2-170, Morgan O’Brien 1-11.

Punt returns – Clearfield: Josh Harbold 2-0.