CURWENSVILLE 42, PORT ALLEGANY 7

Nov. 5, 2005 - District 9 Class A Playoffs - First Round

The fourth seeded Golden Tide (8-2), the defending champions, led 12-7 at halftime, and fifth seeded Port Allegany (7-3) looked like it was about to go in front when disaster struck the Gators.

Bobby Nichols had broken free on a run from his own 32-yard line and was head toward the end zone when he was caught from behind and stripped of the football at the Curwensville 2-yard line. The ball rolled into the end zone, where the Golden Tide recovered for a touchback.

Curwensville then drove 80 yard scoring on a 35-yard Nick Sipes run with 7:39 left in the quarter. The Tide then made the 2-point conversion to put them up 20-7 instead of being down 14-12 if the fumble hadn’t occurred.

The fumble and subsequent drive broke the Gators.

Curwensville quickly made it 28-7 on a 7-yard run by Sipes with 4:35 left in the third quarter before completely putting the game away on a 15-yard Brandon Hess touchdown run with 1:54 to go in the third. The Tide then added a meaningless touchdown run of 10 yards by David Kalgren with 3:27 to play in the game.

Sipes had another huge night for Curwensville rushing 25 times for a career high 249 yards and four touchdowns. It was the 22^nd straight game the junior has run for at least 100 yards, the third time he has gone over 200 yards in a game in his career and the sixth time in his career he has rushed for at least four touchdowns in a game (career high is five). Sipes moved closer to becoming the fourth known player in District 9 history to rush for 4,000 career yards. He currently has 3,714 yard rushing leaving him 286 yards short of 4,000 and 980 short of Aaron Cantafio’s D9 record 4,694 yards. He also has 51 offensive touchdowns putting him within striking distance of Dave Richard’s D9 record 80 TD’s.

The game featured three backs over 100 yards, as Port Allegany had two reach the mark.

Nichols rushed nine times for 104 yards, while Cody Anderson carried 12 times for 123 and a touchdown. Port didn’t have much trouble moving the football gaining 313 yards on the game to Curwensville 405.

Curwensville led 12-0 at the end of the first quarter thanks to runs of 2 and 47 yards by Sipes before Port Allegany got back in the game on a 1-yard run by Anderson with 2:20 left in the first half. The Gators had a chance early in the half to score moving to the Tide 7 with and having a first down before Curwensville’s defense rose to the challenged and stopped Port on downs.

The Tide defense harassed Port QB Willie Bova the entire night limiting him to 10-for25 passing for 81 yards and sacking him three times.

NOTES – Curwensville will travel to Coudersport for a 7 p.m. semifinal game Friday … Coudy beat Curwensville 41-13 at Curwensville in the AML Title game two weeks ago … The three known 4,000-yard career rushers in D9 history are Cantafio, Richards (4,524) and Clarion’s Kyle Cathcart (4,449), who is Sipes’ cousin.

CURWENSVILLE 42, PORT ALLEGANY 7

Score by Quarters

P. Allegany 0 7 0 0 – 7

Curwensville 12 0 24 6 – 42

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

C – Nick Sipes 2 run (Sipes kick failed), 7:29

C – Sipes 47 run (Conversion failed), 4:58

Second quarter

P – Cody Anderson 1 run (Trevor Sena kick), 2:20

Third Quarter

C – Sipes 35 run (Sipes pass from Shawn Sopic), 7:39

C – Sipes 7 run (Phillip Solley run), 4:35

C – Brandon Hess 15 run (Solley run), 1:54

Fourth Quarter

C – David Kalgren 10 run (Conversion failed), 3:27

Team Statistics

P C

First Downs 10 16

Rushes-Yards 24-214 50-390

Passing Yards 81 15

Passes: Comp-Att-Int 10-25-0 2-4-0

Total Yards 313 405

Punts-Avg. 3-29 1-43

Fumbles-Lost 2-2 2-2

Penalties-Yards 6-41 8-61

Individual Statistics

Rushing – Port Allegany: Bobby Nichols 9-104, Cody Anderson 12-123, Willie Bova 3-(-13). Curwensville: Nick Sipes 25-249, Phillip Solley 5-31, Brandon Hess 11-83, Shawn Sopic 2-(-2), Adam Pennington 5-17, Derek Johnson 1-2, David Kalgren 1-10.

Passing – Port Allegany: Willie Bova 10-for-25, 81 yards. Curwensville: Shawn Sopic 2-for-4, 15 yards.

Receiving – Port Allegany: Nick Nichols 2-11, Jake Rohrer 4-36, Cody Anderson 1-10, Anthony Gigliotti 2-20, Tony Crum 1-4. Curwensville: Derek Caldwell 1-14, Bart McGary 1-1.

Punting – Port Allegany: Anthony Gigliotti 2-66, Willie Bova 1-21. Curwensville: Derek Johnson 1-43.