Lane Hubbard took the snap and wheeled to his right.
The senior quarterback wasn’t in the mood to weigh his options. He needed to act. Bermudian Springs had trailed all night in its Class 3A first round game against Big Spring. Its eventual 25-24 win wasn’t a miracle, but instead a comeback that took nearly the entire game to come to fruition.
With just under three minutes to play and Bermudian Springs 11 yards away from its first lead of the night, Hubbard and his teammates had a chance. As Hubbard took the snap, his younger brother, Josh, sprinted forward and cut across the end zone.
“Coming across the field, I saw nothing but daylight,” Josh said. “I just knew that we had that connection then, that he’d make that pass.”
The brothers each knew that play was Bermudian Springs’ opportunity. Big Spring had tested it all night, scoring on its first two drives and again on a 16-yard reception before halftime. A hard-hitting, methodical rushing game strained the Eagles’ defense.
But the Eagles refused to break. After an interception cut the Eagles’ first drive short, Lane hauled in a trick play pass from Noah Leedy in the second quarter. After his kickoff return touchdown to lead off the third quarter was called back, Lane responded with a pair of touchdown passes to Mason Lilley.
“I kind of preached all week we were going to face more physicality than we had in the last couple weeks, probably since New Oxford,” Bermudian Springs coach John Livelsberger said. “I thought we’d be able to keep it a little closer than we did at first, but to turn around and take advantage of our opportunities, the second half was awesome.”
Bermudian Springs had trailed Big Spring by 15 points at halftime. Midway through the fourth quarter, it trailed by five.
After Big Spring coughed up a fumble with less than five minutes left, the Eagles sprang into action. A short catch by Brayden Heller and a pair of big runs by Lane set up the senior quarterback’s final pass to his younger brother. As Lane rolled toward the sideline, Josh sprinted to meet his line of sight.
The pass was simple. Lane doled out a throw over the middle while on the run. Josh nabbed the ball under coverage and rolled out in the end zone.
Pay dirt.
“It was there for a lot of times in the game, and I knew as soon as he called it, if anything went wrong to just look backside,” Lane said. “He’ll have a little bit of a gap and I can fit it in there. (Josh) has enough ball security to just get it and tuck and roll.”
Big Spring didn’t have enough time to respond. Gavin Reinert recorded a strip sack on the ensuing possession to put the Eagles back in control through the final minute, and they ran out the clock. For another week, the reigning District 3 champions defended their title.
“It definitely feels good being able to play up and having a target on our back,” Lane said. “We can’t play down knowing that, so that always keeps us up.”
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District 3 playoff scores, updates from Week 11 of Pa. high school football seasonYAIAA high school football: Week 11 scores
Elco 28, Kennard-Dale 21: The running game that worked so well for the Rams all season didn’t work against the Raiders.
Maybe because that was their bread and butter, too.
“Our game plan was to prevent their quarterback from getting open in space,” Kennard-Dale coach Chris Grube said. “And we did that. But we didn’t count on the fullback.”
Grube said it was tough preparing for the triple option in one week, an offense his team didn’t see this season. They knew Brinley Donmoyer was a threat if he had space to run, and the Rams contained him well for the entire game. He finished with 39 yards and a touchdown run of 1 yard.
But they couldn’t top Ellis Gensamer, especially in the first half. Gensamer carried the ball 21 times for nearly 200 yards and scored on runs of 24 and 30 yards.
And still the Rams had their chances.
They took the first lead when quarterback Noah Hoffer ran in from the 3 in the first quarter. Elco’s defensive line jammed the lanes Hoffer usually likes to run, preventing him from breaking anything longer than 9 yards.
They did the same thing to Ryan Green, who finished with 89 yards on 17 carries. His longest run was 14 yards.
With the running game going nowhere, Hoffer tried to air things out in the first half. That’s a tricky undertaking in a gusty wind.
“It was pretty brutal, very gusty until it finally eased up at the start of the fourth quarter,” Grube said. “We leaned on [Hoffer] a little bit more in the first half, but they had guys where we were trying to throw the ball.”
Hoffer finally found some passing success in the second half when he hit Tyler Mack, Noah Tarbert and Logan Tarbert on some short routes. That set up a 38-yard bomb to Logan Tarbert that pulled the Rams to within a touchdown with 5:45 remaining. It was the second touchdown pass to Tarbert, who also hauled in an 8-yard score.
The Rams had one final chance to score when the Raiders were forced to punt with 3:28 remaining. Green ran for one first down, but Elco batted down K-D’s best chance to score and the Ram turned the ball over on downs with 1:55 remaining.
“At the end of the day, this is still a game,” Grube said. “And we got to play a meaningful Week 11 football game. That was a tough football team.”
Spring Grove 35, Muhlenberg 0: Davis Baum threw for one touchdown and ran for two more as the Rockets blanked Muhlenberg. Baum connected with Jordan Eisenhart for a 31-yard score and ran for touchdowns of 13 and 1 yards to lead the Rockets, who scored twice in the first quarter and never looked back. Brody Redding carried the ball 17 times for 122 yards and Cade Gibbs ran 12 times for 100 yards to lead the ground game. Both ran for a touchdown. Spring Grove will now face top-seeded New Oxford in the next round.
Middletown 21, Eastern York 19: Brady Cook notched an interception on the opening drive of the game and Quinn Bramble ran out for the Golden Knights’ first score, but the Blue Raiders managed a 14-12 lead and never looked back. Bramble later hit Landon Englehart for a 14-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, but Middletown recorded an interception with 39 seconds remaining to cut the Knights’ comeback hopes short.
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