Crusaders kick into gear
- 06 September 2008
On the heels of a season-opening loss to Trinity, which coach Bruce Harbach called "embarrassing," the last thing the Crusaders wanted to do was come out flat against upset-minded Ephrata.They did.
It resulted in two quick turnovers, a costly penalty and an early 7-0 hole.
But thanks to a steady dose of Kyle Smith and Tyler Purvis, Lancaster Catholic righted its ship and cruised to a 44-7 non-league win over the Mounts Friday night at Rossmere Stadium.
Purvis had a career night, hauling in 10 Smith passes for 206 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw one for good measure.
"(Tyler Jankowski) went down the first game, so I knew I had to step up," said Purvis, a 6-foot-3 junior. "We wanted to come out here and show everybody what we could do."
One of the Smith-Purvis connections was a 95-yarder late in the third quarter right after the Crusader defense stopped Ephrata on four plays near the goal line.
"That pass wasn't even the called play," Purvis said. "I was supposed to run a hitch, but I talked to Kyle and he told me to do a hitch-and-go. I wasn't disagreeing with that call."
The play, just three yards shy of the longest play in LCHS history, gave the Crusaders a 30-7 lead.
It was the third in a stretch of five straight possessions that resulted in Crusader touchdowns.
The last in the string began as a field goal try, but ended with Purvis (the holder) throwing an 18-yard TD to Andrew Millay.
"The snap was fine, I just fumbled it," said Purvis. "I was fortunate one of my guys was there, so I just threw it."
Smith threw it 30 times and completed 19 of them for 269 yards and four TDs.
The Crusader offense rolled up 447 total yards and had 24 first downs.
The Ephrata offense, meanwhile, found the end zone on its opening drive, but only finished with 99 yards total offense, six first downs (two by penalty) and the defense has now surrendered 97 points in two games.
"I think we fought and we fought hard," said Ephrata coach Jim Vieland. "It's a young team making mistakes young teams make at this point."
The Crusaders are now 1-1 heading into next week's showdown in Manheim.
"This was a must-win game for us," said Harbach. "We had to win after last week and going into Central next week."
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.