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Warriors Finish the Job at Lake Lehman, 43-10

Game Summary: As the final minutes of the Lake Lehman game ticked away, the emotional hugs between Warrior players were everywhere to be seen on the sideline. Wyoming Area had just convincingly trounced the Black Knights, 43-10, and in doing so, made the statement, “We’re back.”

It’s been an incredible two weeks for the 2011 Warrior Football team—losing their first game by blowing a fourth quarter lead to Western Wayne, and then seeing their community decimated by the flood. In their opponent, Lake Lehman, they also had to face the ghost of the 2010 team that surrendered a 26-0 first quarter lead on the way to a bitter 40-38 defeat. So when these kids took the field on Friday night, they had a lot of baggage to unload.

And unload they did. On his first snap, Quarterback Nick O’Brien ran a quarterback keeper right up the middle and scored from 61 yards out. That was O’Brien’s first of five touchdowns of the night. O’Brien rushed for 218 yards and passed for another 64. On offense and defense, O’Brien was clearly the best athlete on the field. His offensive numbers speak for themselves, but his toughness on defense is just as important to this Warrior team.

But this game was just as much about the rest of the Warrior team. In going into this game, the Warriors had a lot of questions to answer. Were they tough enough? Could they tackle? Could they play defense? The collapse against Western Wayne two weeks ago had raised all of these questions. After jumping out to a 10-0 lead, the Warriors allowed Lake Lehman to drive up and down the field early in the second quarter, tying the score at 10. If you were a Warrior fan, you had to be thinking in the back of your mind—“Oh no, here we go again.”

But with 1:15 remaining in the second quarter, the Warriors responded to Lake Lehman tying the score with a drive that ended in a beautiful 29 yard touchdown pass from O’Brien to Justin Langdon, making the score 16-10. The ensuing kickoff changed the complexion of the game. Jake Smith kicked off with time running out in the second quarter. The Lake Lehman return man found daylight up the middle and it looked like he might take it all the way. Smith then laid a thunderous hit on the runner, separating the Black Knight from the ball at the 31 yard line. The Warriors recovered the fumble and went to work. After a 25 yard pass from O’Brien to Cody Schmitz, Jeff Skursky rumbled into the end zone from 3 yards out to give the Warriors a 24-10 halftime lead.

You didn’t have to be Knute Rockne to deliver the halftime speech in the Warrior locker room. Coach Spencer's speech had to go something like this—“We’ve been in this position before-- with Lake Lehman last year and Western Wayne two weeks ago. We’ve played a good game so far—but we need to play hard for four quarters. Keep up the intensity and finish what you have started."

Well, the speech must have resonated with the team. The Warriors shut out Lake Lehman in the second half and then added another 19 points for good measure. Last year, the Black Knights were the ones who celebrated after a hard fought victory. This year’s Warrior team ran off the field triumphantly relieved that they had gotten the monkey off their back. With both GAR and Hanover losing on Friday night, the Warriors are back in the thick of a district playoff race.

Many players had good games for the Warriors. Both offensive and defensive lines played well: Bartoli, Zielinski, Smith, Driving Hawk, Erzar, Burton, Joe Taylor and Trent Grove did a great job blocking and freeing up O’Brien. Similarly, they did a good job in the second half on defense. Undersized, but gritty linemen Ryan Filipiak and Freshman Marty Michaels played nose tackle and handled themselves well-- bringing back memories of Bobby Kintz. Michaels also ended the game with an interception when playing linebacker. Matt Kintz, Corey Popovich, Jeff Skursky, Zak LaNunziata and Ryan Filipiak played tough at linebackers. Joe Taylor and AJ Jones were also in on a number of plays. Matt Kintz, in particular was around the ball all night.

The Warrior secondary allowed only 7 yards passing. Langdon, Bouie, Schmitz, Adonizio, Zezza, LaNunziata, and of course O’Brien snuffed out Lake Lehman’s passing game—This was the same Black Knight quarterback who threw for over 160 yards in last year’s game. Playing from his corner position, Ahmad Bouie had a number of hard hitting tackles. Jordan Zezza did a great job at quarterback and completed a pass to Schmitz for 29 yards. Schmitz had three catches for 64 yards. Schmitz is developing into a very good player on both sides of the ball.

Next week, the Warriors play Hanover at Hanover. This is a must win if the Warriors hope to stay alive for a District Playoff spot.

Times Leader Box Score

Wyoming Area vs. Lake Lehman

Sept 16, 2011

TIMES LEADER ARTICLE

Emotional win for Wyoming Area vs. Lehman

Warriors rebound from a difficult few weeks to hammer the Black Knights on the road.

By Derek Levarse dlevarse@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter

LEHMAN TWP. — Randy Spencer thought about it for a second before deciding on the word “unprecedented.”

That did a fine job summing up the past few weeks for Wyoming Area – in the community and on the football field.

The Wyoming Area coach gave a short but emotional speech to his squad after Friday’s 43-10 win over Lake-Lehman – a contest that would have been a home game if not for the historic flooding throughout the region in the past week. Wyoming Area players spent part of that time helping out with the cleanup and recovery efforts, particularly in ravaged West Pittston, where the school district draws from. Their game last week was canceled because of it, leaving the Warriors even more time to dwell on a tough opening-week loss to Western Wayne.

The Warriors (1-1) responded by scoring twice in the final 75 seconds of the first half and then decisively closing out a victory over the Black Knights. “It’s a big win for our program coming off these last two weeks,” Spencer said. “I said to the kids before the game that I was already so proud of them. And the goal was to walk off this field and be proud again.” That they were.

Nick O’Brien led the charge, spending most of the game at quarterback but also lining up at tailback for a few drives. At the end of the night, he figured in on five of the Warriors’ six touchdowns, finishing with 218 yards and four scores on the ground while also passing for 64 yards and another score.

On the Warriors’ first play from scrimmage following a Lake-Lehman territory, O’Brien took the snap and dashed straight up the gut for a 61-yard touchdown. A two-point conversion and a safety made it 10-0 after one quarter before a Nick Shelley 22-yard touchdown run and a Jared Novitski field goal tied the game up for Lake-Lehman (0-3). Wyoming Area took control from there.

O’Brien hit Josh Langdon with a deep pass down the right sideline for a 29-yard touchdown with just 1:15 left before halftime. Wyoming Area then forced and recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff. Three plays later, the Warriors were right back in the end zone on a 3-yard plunge by freshman Jeff Skursky. A 10-10 game suddenly became 24-10 at the half.

“We gave ’em 14 points just like that,” Lehman coach Jerry Gilsky said. “What can you say? What can you do?”

The Warriors knew it wouldn’t be enough. They saw a 34-12 lead against Western Wayne in the opener disappear in the second half.

Last year in a game at Lake-Lehman, the Knights rallied from a 26-0 deficit and beat Wyoming Area 42-39.

“I was concerned about fatigue – not just physically but mentally,” Spencer said. “Working with the flood efforts and everything in these past few weeks, you’re concerned about them mentally. But they did a great job.”

There was no letdown this time.

O’Brien broke off a big kickoff return to open the second half and then picked up gains of 31 and 4 yards to reach the end zone in the opening 30 seconds to make it 30-10.

The junior hit paydirt twice more in the second half and the Warriors defense blanked the Knights the rest of the way.

Lake-Lehman had just one first down in the second half until the reserves picked up three on the team’s final drive.

“I don’t know what the answer is right now,” Gilsky said. “We’re going to have a team meeting in the morning and we might have to reevaluate our system. I’ve got to find 11 guys that can get out there and get the job done

CITIZENS VOICE ARTICLE

O'Brien, Warriors top Black Knights

By Steve Bennett (Staff Writer)

Published: September 17, 2011

LEHMAN TWP. - Truth be told, Randy Spencer really didn't know what to expect from the Wyoming Area football team Friday night.

After spending the last week helping not only their own families deal with the damage from last week's flooding issues in the West Pittston area, the Warriors were aiding the people in the community as well.

That in itself was a concern to Spencer, who had to worry about fatigue, not just the physical part but also the mental part. But all it took was one Nick O'Brien carry on Wyoming Area's first snap of the night to give Spencer an indication that his team, for at least 48 minutes, had their minds on football.

And after O'Brien finished the night with four rushing touchdowns, the Warriors had their first victory of the year, a 43-10 win over Lake-Lehman.

"It was a big win for our program especially coming off the last two weeks," Spencer said. "The kids committed themselves in the community and took care of those priorities. Our goal was to walk off this field proud of the team."

After the Warriors recovered a backwards pass on their own 39, O'Brien took the first snap and scampered right up the middle untouched for a 69-yard touchdown ran that ignited the Wyoming Area bench. After the defense held on the next series and forced Lehman to punt from the shadow of its own end zone, a bad snap sailed out of the end zone for a safety and 10-0 Wyoming Area lead.

"We were hoping for the best. We were dealing with numbers with different kids out on different days for the assistance they were rendering," Spencer said. "We prepared the best we could. It was just hold your breath and see what happens when we kick it off."

The Black Knights appeared to get the momentum back in their favor when Nick Shelley ran 22 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter and Jared Novitski added a game-tying 37-yard field goal.

But as quickly as Lake-Lehman had the momentum, the Warriors came in and swiped it right back.

Justin Langdon hauled in a 29-yard TD pass from O'Brien and on the ensuing kick, the Warriors recovered a fumble and were right back in business on the Lehman 31.

Three plays later, freshman Jeff Skursky powered his way over the goal line from the 3-yard line giving the Warriors 14 points in a matter of 44 seconds. But more impoartantly, the Warriors had the ball to start the second half and O'Brien capped the initial series of the third quarter with a 4-yard touchdown run to put the game away.

"We tie it up, we give up 14 points, I don't know what the answer is now," Lake-Lehman coach Jerry Gilsky said. "We collected ourselves after falling behind early, we tied the game up and think that things are going our way. We have the fumble and that deflated our balloon right there."

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