BY JEFF FALK

SOUTH LEBANON – Its guest came out and punched it squarely in the mouth. Now the Cedar Crest football team had been punched before, but not like this.

The problem was that Cocalico never stopped swinging.

On a warm Friday night at Arnold Field at Earl Boltz Stadium, the high-flying Falcons were brought back to earth by a physical Cocalico club, 55-6. Plagued by turnovers and the Eagles’ grueling ground game, Cedar Crest yielded the first 41 points of the contest, which brought the mercy rule into play for the second half.

In fact, Cedar Crest didn’t stop Cocalico all evening, not once forcing an Eagle punt.

The outcome was in stark contrast to the Falcons’ first five outings of this season. Cedar Crest had opened the campaign with five straight wins, one of its finest starts in program history.

Not unlike the Falcons, Cocalico is now 5-1 overall and 2-1 in Section Two of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.

With 358 coming on the ground, Cocalico out gained Cedar Crest 528 total yards to 180.

“Cocalico is good,” said Cedar Crest head coach Rob Wildasin. “We got beat in all three phases of the game. We weren’t ready to play, and that’s on me. That’s all I’ve really got to say.”

“Because their offense can score like ‘that’, we wanted to tackle well and not give up a cheapie,” said Cocalico head coach Dave Gingrich. “We really focused this week on playing over the top. Defensively, we were concerned with Logan (Horn) and their wide outs and their running backs. Offensively, we were worried about them (the Falcons) flying to the ball.

“Momentum is a weird thing,” continued Gingrich. “We had it in the first half, and we kept it. And things kind of snowballed on them (the Falcons). They’re a good team. They’ll bounce back.”

Seemingly everything that could go wrong for the Falcons did. And when it rains, it pours. But Cedar Crest was never able to match the Eagles’ physicality.

It was 21-0 late in the first quarter when Cedar Crest ‘went for it’ on a fourth-down-and-11-yards-to-go from the Cocalico 46-yard-line. The Falcons turned the ball over three times in the first half, and four times total.

“We played pretty well,” said Gingrich, whose squad was coming off a tough 17-7 loss to Manheim Central last week. “I didn’t see a lot out there I wasn’t happy with. I thought we played with great effort. I thought we played with great passion.

“All of us like it when things go well,” continued Gingrich. “The bumps and bruises don’t hurt as much when you’re winning. Last week we ate a little humble pie. I was glad we put it to rest on Monday.”

The Eagles scored on their first six possessions of the game, turning an interception into a four-yard Garrett Longenecker touchdown run and a 41-0 lead, 47 seconds before the break. But with its only real highlight of the night, Cedar Crest responded quickly, in 25 seconds to be exact.

Horn hit Cole Laney with a six-yard scoring strike in the left corner of the end zone, to make it 41-6. The touchdown had been set up by a 45-yard completion from Horn to Laney.

But the Eagles drove the second-half kickoff 51 yards in five plays, the last of which was a 31-yard touchdown rumble by Owen Zimmerman on a fourth-down snap.

“We made some great plays,” said Gingrich. “Our second guy (Longenecker) is pretty good too. He’s a shifty guy and Brandon (Brubaker) is a bull.

“The Xs and Os are one thing, but the things you can teach kids about life are most important,” added Gingrich. “Being able to work with young kids is very rewarding and very gratifying.”

Thanks to an interception, Cocalico tallied a pair of touchdowns 2:08 apart in the first period to assume an early 14-0 lead.

Brubaker capped a seven-play, 59-yard possession with a 21-yard scoring scamper, and Longenecker ran into the end zone from 50 yards away.

“That’s a good offense over there,” said Gingrich of Cedar Crest. “We had a lot of momentum, and we kept pushing. We kept pushing offensively, and we kept pushing defensively. We rushed Horn into making bad decisions.

“Cedar Crest is 5-0 for a reason,” Gingrich added. “They didn’t play their best game tonight.”

Longenecker pushed the Eagles’ lead to 28-0, 1:22 into the second stanza, when he went 26 yards to pay dirt. And Brubaker extended it even further with a five-yard touchdown blast, 5:28 before the break.

With both Brubaker and Longenecker eclipsing the century mark, Cocalico rolled up 309 rushing yards in the first half. The Eagles rushed the ball 54 times and threw it only twice.

Horn completed nine of 21 pass attempts for 116 yards. Laney hauled in four balls for 92 yards.

 To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com.

 

 

 

 

 

2017 Cedar Crest Football Schedule

Date	Teams	Score
9/01 7:00 pm	Lebanon at Cedar Crest	14 42
9/08 7:00 pm	Cedar Crest at Northern Lebanon	35 7
9/15 7:00 pm	Lower Dauphin at Cedar Crest	35 41
9/22 7:00 pm	Cedar Crest at Ephrata	41 7
9/29 7:00 pm	Cedar Crest at Garden Spot	60 30
10/06 7:00 pm	Cocalico at Cedar Crest	55 6
10/13 7:00 pm	Solanco at Cedar Crest
10/20 7:00 pm	Cedar Crest at Manheim Central
10/27 7:00 pm	Elizabethtown at Cedar Crest
11/03 7:00 pm	Cedar Crest at Lampeter-Strasburg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lancaster-Lebanon League

 Section Two Standings

	League			Overall
	W	L	PCT	W	L	PCT	PS	PA
Manheim Central	3	0	100.00	6	0	100.00	240	72
Cedar Crest	2	1	66.67	5	1	83.33	225	148
Cocalico	2	1	66.67	5	1	83.33	243	51
Lampeter-Strasburg	2	1	66.67	5	1	83.33	246	129
Solanco	2	1	66.67	3	3	50.00	201	210
Garden Spot	1	2	33.33	2	4	33.33	252	255
Elizabethtown	0	3	0.00	3	3	50.00	147	96
Ephrata	0	3	0.00	0	6	0.00	48	289

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 PIAA District Three

 Class AAAAA Power Rankings

AAAAA	School	W	L	T	Rating	TWP	OWP	TWPW	OWPW	TWPL	OWPL
1	Harrisburg	5-	0-	0	0.866933	1.000000	0.704297	5.6	41.8	0.0	17.6
2	Cedar Crest	5-	0-	0	0.821262	1.000000	0.602804	5.7	32.3	0.0	21.3
3	Manheim Central	5-	0-	0	0.808449	1.000000	0.574331	5.6	31.1	0.0	23.1
4	Palmyra	5-	0-	0	0.765737	1.000000	0.479414	4.9	26.2	0.0	28.5
5	Cocalico	5-	1-	0	0.754319	0.869231	0.613871	5.7	32.8	0.9	20.6
6	Governor Mifflin	5-	1-	0	0.709093	0.873134	0.508597	5.9	28.1	0.9	27.2
7	William Penn	4-	1-	0	0.706310	0.867257	0.509597	4.9	26.6	0.8	25.6
8	Solanco	3-	2-	0	0.659679	0.663366	0.655172	3.4	35.2	1.7	18.5
9	Elizabethtown	3-	2-	0	0.631043	0.663366	0.591536	3.4	32.2	1.7	22.2
10	Waynesboro	4-	2-	0	0.618527	0.706897	0.510520	4.1	23.1	1.7	22.1
11	Conestoga Valley	3-	2-	0	0.613037	0.676190	0.535849	3.6	28.4	1.7	24.6
12	Dover	4-	2-	0	0.574117	0.656250	0.473733	4.2	25.7	2.2	28.6
13	Northeastern	3-	3-	0	0.567971	0.598214	0.531008	3.4	27.4	2.3	24.2
14	South Western	2-	3-	0	0.558467	0.494382	0.636792	2.2	33.8	2.3	19.3
15	Lower Dauphin	2-	3-	0	0.558336	0.464646	0.672845	2.3	36.3	2.7	17.7
16	Exeter Township	3-	3-	0	0.550148	0.588710	0.503018	3.7	25.0	2.6	24.7
17	Garden Spot	2-	4-	0	0.543539	0.396552	0.723190	2.3	39.5	3.5	15.1
18	Cedar Cliff	3-	3-	0	0.505832	0.579365	0.415957	3.7	19.6	2.7	27.5
19	Mechanicsburg	2-	3-	0	0.487688	0.473118	0.505495	2.2	25.3	2.5	24.8
20	Hershey	2-	3-	0	0.483398	0.453608	0.519807	2.2	26.9	2.7	24.9
21	Muhlenberg	2-	3-	0	0.454399	0.424242	0.491257	2.1	29.5	2.9	30.6
22	Twin Valley	2-	4-	0	0.445335	0.350877	0.560784	2.0	28.6	3.7	22.4
23	Spring Grove	1-	4-	0	0.406163	0.258427	0.586730	1.2	31.0	3.3	21.8
24	Daniel Boone	1-	4-	0	0.401442	0.252747	0.583181	1.2	31.9	3.4	22.8
25	Lebanon	1-	5-	0	0.391129	0.221154	0.598875	1.2	32.0	4.1	21.4
26	Ephrata	0-	6-	0	0.318182	0.000000	0.707071	0.0	38.5	5.1	16.0
27	New Oxford	0-	5-	0	0.310948	0.000000	0.690995	0.0	36.5	4.9	16.3
28	Red Land	0-	6-	0	0.293478	0.000000	0.652174	0.0	35.3	5.2	18.8
29	Fleetwood	0-	5-	0	0.217781	0.000000	0.483957	0.0	27.2	4.9	29.0