Vikings roll past Bulldogs
They spent last Friday night in Williamsport and this Friday in Bellefonte.
They don’t know where they are playing next Friday, but they don’t mind the travel no matter the destination.
That’s because for the first time since 2012, the Allentown Central Catholic Vikings are headed to the PIAA semifinals.
The District 11 champs who went just 5-5 in their Eastern Pennsylvania Conference schedule and were 3-5 in the EPC South, continued their postseason to remember with their fourth straight win Friday night at Bald Eagle Area’s Alumni Stadium.
This was the most impressive of them all.
The Vikings answered a Meadville touchdown on the District 10 champions’ first possession with 50 unanswered points and rolled to a 50-7 win in the PIAA 4A quarterfinals.
After posting its most lopsided win since a 54-0 shellacking of Unionville in the first round of the 1994 Class 3A tournament, ACCHS advances to play District 7 champ Aliquippa next weekend. Aliquippa routed Central Valley 34-7 Friday night in the WPIAL 4A title game at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh.
Caiden Shaffer scored four touchdowns and Nathan Schultz and Tamlin Ferguson each ran for scores as Meadville lost for just the second time in 14 games. Shaffer and Schultz both ran for more than 100 yards and Ferguson threw for 190 yards.
“It was a good team effort by the offense and defense,” said Shaffer, who has more than 1,200 yards this season and upped his touchdown total to 26. “The line gave me the best blocks I could have asked for and the defense set for my tackles.”
Meadville, a run-dominated team that threw the ball just 65 times in 13 games, had a big completion to cap its first drive of the game. The Bulldogs ran the ball 15 straight times but on play No. 16, a fourth down-and-12, Gavin Longstreth hit Khalon Simmons for a 14-yard TD touchdown.
It would be the biggest moment of the night for the District 10 champs.
Simmons, a 2,000-yard rusher with 40 touchdowns, was held under 100 yards rushing. He was injured on the final play of the first half and although he returned, he was at less than 100% in the second half as his team tried to play catchup with an offense unaccustomed to throwing the ball. After gaining 80 yards on its first drive Meadville had just 126 the rest of the night.
The Vikings outgained them 453-206.
“We knew they ran the Wing-T offense and we know it so well here at Central,” coach Tim McGorry said. “We felt pretty good coming in and knew that if we could stop the run and stop them on first down we were going to have a positive run. We kind of buckled down after that first drive.”
“We kind of just realized that all it was was [us] messing up ourselves,” Shaffer said. “We just fixed it up.”
ACCHS answered in a hurry with a 7-play, 53-yard drive that was capped by Shaffer’s first TD run.
The Vikings took the lead on its next possession with Shaffer finding a seam for a 30-yard scoring run.
ACCHS then had to turn away Meadville after the Bulldogs drove deep into Vikings territory. The second possession ended with a 22-yard loss on a fourth-down sack by Shaffer that gave ACCHS the ball at midfield with 29 seconds left in the first half.
That set in motion a sequence that blew the game open.
On its first play after the sack, Tamlin Ferguson hit Jareel Calhoun for a 50-yard strike and a 21-7. Meadville fumbled on the ensuing kickoff, Ethan Hosak recovered the fumble and three plays later Shaffer had his third touchdown, this one from 30 yards.
“These guys are like brothers to me; I love all of them,” Shaffer said. “I can’t wait for another week of practice.”
And another long bus ride to the central part of the state.
“It’s certainly not easy to get on a bus and have a 2½-hour or 3-hour ride on back-to-back weekends, but the kids have responded to it and we’ve been really good about planning how we’ve traveled and where we need to be and at what time and how we approach it,” McGorry said. “That’s been beneficial for our kids.”
What was beneficial to Central was scoring three touchdowns in a span of little more than two minutes over the end of the first half and the start of the second.
After Shaffer’s sack, the Vikings decided to go for the quick strike.
“That was something we talked about doing off a turnover or a sudden change like that,” McGorry said. “We wanted to have a heavier personnel grouping and go play-action and take a shot down the field to Jareel. It’s certainly something we talked about during the work along with mixing in a bunch of tempo.”
Ferguson, who completed 16 of 23 passes, credited Calhoun for making a great play on the 50-yarder that broke it open.
“He went up and got the ball and made a guy miss and found his way to the end zone,” Ferguson said. “The O-line did a great job as well and the wideouts did a great job, too. The offensive balance late in the season has been key. We’ve done a really good scheme-wise and game-planning as well.
“But [Shaffer] is a tank back there in the backfield. He’s awesome. He runs hard and never stops his feet.”
Ferguson said he hopes Shaffer and everyone else keeps running through another week of practice and another big game next week.
“We love these road trips,” Ferguson said. “We just need another good week of practice to get ready for a tough semifinal game.”