KEYSTONE 30, CLARION 7

Sept. 7, 2007

By Chris Rossetti

KNOX – After a heartbreaking 1-point loss to Redbank Valley last week, Keystone knew it was in an almost must-win position Friday night when it hosted Clarion even though it was only Week Two.

And win the Panthers did, capitalizing on four Bobcat turnovers and many other Clarion mistakes to deliver a 30-7 win, their first win over the Bobcats in front of the home crowd since 1997.

“We really did consider it a must-win game,” Keystone head coach Jason Nellis said. “For the goals we have set, to start off 0-2 would have really been devastating. You never know whether you can recover from something like that. I’m just proud of the way they came out.”

Instead of starting 0-2, the Panthers did something they hadn’t done in most of their current players’ lifetimes – they beat Clarion for a second straight season. The last time Keystone won two in a row over Clarion was the Jeremy McCool-Matt Best-led teams of the late 1980s – 1988 and 1989 to be exact. Considering most high school seniors this year were born in 1989 and 1990, it is a pretty good bet that few to none of the Keystone players were alive when that modest two-game winning streak started. In fact, Keystone has now beaten Clarion in back-to-back seasons for just the third time in its history with the 1969-70 squads also accomplishing the feat.

“It’s pretty special to beat them at home,” Nellis said. “Three or four people were reminding me all week that we hadn’t beaten them here in 10 years. It’s something that east at you. You want to be competitive with a team like Clarion, and you don’t want to go 10 years without beating them on your home field. And beating Clarion two years in a row is an important step in what we are trying to build. Hopefully it gives us a mental edge the rest of the season.”

Things started off great for the home team almost from the outset of the game, as Keystone grabbed a 14-0 lead 2:50 into the contest despite running just two offensive plays for a total of 15 yards and one first down.

Clarion got the ball on the opening kickoff and quickly went three-and-out.

Things then went downhill for the Bobcats when the snap on the punt sailed over punter Adam Bevevino’s head giving Keystone a first down at the Clarion 15.

Two plays later, Corey Lee caught a 7-yard scoring pass from Ben Black making it 7-0 Panthers.

Then on Clarion’s next offensive play, James Seidle, making just his second start at running back after being a wide receiver, was stripped off the ball by Keystone’s Drew Myers. The Panthers Mike Switzer picked up the loose ball and went 31 yards for a Panther touchdown and ` 14-0 lead just 16 seconds after Lee’s score.

“It was important for us to get that early lead,” Nellis said. “It’s such a huge momentum game. You get on a roll and it’s hard to get it stopped.”

The bad roll continued for Clarion with two more bad punt snaps and a fumble in the first quarter with the last bad punt snap leading to a 3-yard punt and a 23-yard Keystone scoring drive that was capped by a 4-yard scoring pass from Black to Kyle Rhoads making it 21-0 Keystone at the end of the first quarter.

“I have no explanation for what happened tonight,” Clarion head coach Larry Wiser said. “Turning the ball over, bad snaps … we spend an inordinate amount of time working on this stuff. We just seemed to be in never-never land. We weren’t playing with any emotion at the begging of the game. This game is really an emergency for me. We are going back to Clarion and having one of our biggest meetings to decide what we are going to do from here. Are we going to pack it in or are we going to come out fighting and become a better football team?”

Clarion seemed to get some of the emotion back with two big plays early in the second quarter.

The first was an 81-yard touchdown run by Seidle on a third-and-11 play from the Bobcat 19 that cut the Keystone lead to 21-7 just over a minute into the second quarter.

The next was when Jake Fleeger picked off a Black pass at midfield moments later.

But all that emotion and momentum went away two plays later when Kyle Rhoads stripped the ball from Seidle, and Derek Swartfager picked it up and returned it to the Clarion 36-yard line.

That set up a 2-yard scoring run from offensive lineman Drew Myers on a William “The Refrigerator” Perry play that made the score 28-7 Keystone at halftime.

The Panthers then tacked on a safety on another bad snap – this one from the shotgun formation – from Clarion in the fourth quarter, and the Keystone defense didn’t allow Clarion inside the 25-yard line the entire second half.

“They made a few mistakes early, and we were able to capitalize on them,” Nellis said. “We also made a couple of breaks for ourselves. But boy, the rest of the game after the first quarter seemed to take three hours. I didn’t really feel comfortable until after the third quarter.”

Clarion actually outgained Keystone 193-173 in the game, but 81 of those yards came on the Seidle run. The Bobcats fumbled the ball 10 times in the game losing four of them and committed eight penalties for 70 yards including a couple of personal foul penalties.

“We were out own prosecutors tonight,” Wiser said. “We’re the ones that created the mistakes. We didn’t have a good week of practice, and we shot ourselves in the foot so many times. Getting down two or three scores and the bad field position, you can’t give a team like Keystone that much (and expect to win the game).”

NOTES – Clarion suffered potentially more than just a loss, as two key players on defense – defensive back Garret Whisner and linebacker Bubba Rue – were lost to injuries. Whisner was hurt sometime in the second half and was seen leaving the field on crutches with his leg immobilized after the game. Wiser said he was on his way to the hospital for tests. Rue, meanwhile, hurt his shoulder in the first half and spent the rest of the game with the shoulder in a sling. The extent of either injury was not known at the end of the game.

KEYSTONE 30, CLARION 7

Score by Quarters

Clarion 0 7 0 0 – 7

Keystone 21 7 0 2 – 30

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

K – Corey Lee 7 pass from Ben Black (Tyler Jack kick), 9:26

K – Mike Switzer 31 fumble recovery (Jack kick), 9:10

K – Kyle Rhoads 4 pass from Black (Jack kick), 0:25

Second Quarter

C – James Seidle 81 run (Jon Kemmer kick), 10:58

K – Drew Myers 2 run (Jack kick), 6:37

Fourth Quarter

K – Safety (ball kicked out of the end zone on a fumble), 7:18  

TEAM STATISTICS

C K

First Downs 9 8

Rushes-yards 35-102 29-47

Passing Yards 91 126

Passing: Com-Att-Int 6-18-0 9-18-1

Total Yardage 193 173

Fumbles-Lost 10-4 2-0

Penalties-Yards 8-70 5-34

Punts-Avg. 3-18.7 6-33.5

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING – Clarion: James Seidle 13-109; Dan Walter 3-12; Jon Kemmer 4-10; Adam Bevevino 5-8; Bubba Rue 2-4; Kyle Zacour 1-4; Joel Matticks 2-minus 2; Team 5-minus 43. Keystone: Derek Swartfager 13-50; Dan Reed 4-8; Mike "Red" Switzer 2-7; Drew Myers 1-2; Corey Lee 1-0; Gary Stephens 1-minus 2; Team 3-minus 6; Ben Black 4-minus 12.

PASSING – Clarion: Adam Bevevino 6-for-17, 91 yards; Kyle Zacour 0-for-1. Keystone: Ben Black 8-for-15, 99 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception; Dan Reed 1-for-3, 27 yards.

RECEIVING – Clarion-Jake Fleeger 2-51; Ryan Smith 2-15; James Seidle 1-19; Dan Walter 1-6. Keystone-Mike Switzer 3-83; Kyle Rhoads 3-21; Corey Lee 2-27; Derek Swartfager 1-minus 5.

INTERCEPTIONS: Clarion-Jake Fleeger 1.