Knights run past Ephrata
- 24 October 2010
The Hempfield offense runs the ball to set up the run.And the Black Knights' dive-option running game was in full gear Friday night on Homecoming in Landisville, keeping the Ephrata defense off balance all night in a 44-13 [boxscore] L-L League romp over the Mountaineers.
Hempfield led just 21-13 at the half, but then ran the ball on every second-half offensive play to break the game wide open with 23 unanswered points. The Knights (3-2 L-L, 3-5 overall) gained 223 of their 360 rushing yards after halftime, averaging 9.7 yards on 23 second-half carries.
Whether it was Joe Gamble (15 carries, 140 yards, three TD's) on the outside, Julian Alicea (12 carries, 73 yards, two scores) on the inside or quarterback Michael Murr (11 carries, 133 yards, one TD) just keeping the ball off dive fakes, their option attack was never really slowed.
In an effort to explain it afterwards, Black Knight head coach Bob Forgrave kept it simple.
"We're getting better as a football team," he said of his young team which has now won two straight. "I think our inside run game was forcing them to stay inside defensively."
The game didn't start out the way it finished.
In the first quarter, both teams combined for 38 total yards, six punts on six possessions, and zero first downs. But as play changed ends of the fields, so did the tempo of the contest.
On the first play of the second quarter, Gamble took an option pitch from Murr, who made a great ball fake to the dive, and scampered 66 yards down the left side to open the scoring at 7-0.
It was a sign of things to come for the rest of the period.
Ephrata (0-5, 2-6) answered with a 6-play, 53-yard drive that ended with quarterback Jeremy Franck keeping it on an option and racing 29 yards to score at 8:30 of the second.
Gamble added a one-yard score at 7:02 and Alicea took an inside dive for an 11-yard TD at 4:30 to make it 21-7, before Ephrata's Franck hit Andrew Burkholder, who played a fine all-around game, for a 16-yard touchdown pass just 34 seconds before halftime.
Truth be told, Ephrata had the Knights' defense off balance with its option game as well. Franck got to the edge, often unaccounted for, and gained 75 yards on 10 first-half carries.
However, the Hempfield defense, led by Jordan Brown and Neil Clarkin (two sacks each), played assignment football in the second half, allowing Ephrata just two yards rushing on 15 carries.
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