Mounts Hit the Gas

Ephrata football coach and teacher Kris Miller had Angel Collazo as a student in the classroom as a freshman and on the football field as a sophomore. Miller recalls Collazo lacking confidence in both of those years.

Then the breakthrough for Collazo came as a junior in Week Two of last season, when he intercepted a pass and later had a long touchdown reception in a win over Warwick.

“At that moment, he realized he belonged on the high school football field,” Miller said.

Now a senior, Collazo got Ephrata off to a hot start at its own War Memorial Field on Friday en route to an eventual 52-33 Lancaster- Lebanon League Section Three win over previously unbeaten Twin Valley.

The victory forced a three-way tie in the loss column atop Section Three between Ephrata (4-1 L-L, 7-1 overall), Twin Valley (41, 7-1) and Garden Spot (31, 7-1) — the Spartans won a nonleague contest at Central Mountain on Friday.

“How we beat this team tonight is how we should always play,” Collazo said. “Coming out strong, finishing strong.”

Twin Valley’s opening possession ended in a fumble recovered and returned 78 yards to the end zone by Collazo. The score was called back because of an Ephrata penalty on the return. The Mounts went 35 yards with a hurry-up approach over four plays to score, the last three being runs from Collazo, who punched it in on an 8-yard run to make it 7-0.

After a Twin Valley punt, Ephrata needed just five plays to cover 94 yards, capped by a 44-yard halfback pass from Collazo to a wide open Nick Keller to make it 14-0.

Collazo had entered the game with eight rushing carries all season. He tallied eight carries in the win, tallying 94 rushing yards to go along with 24 reception yards and the TD throw.

“We put a new formation in,” Miller said. “Unbalanced and try to outflank them. With Collazo’sspeed, he’s been running jet sweep a lot. It was a way to get the ball to him quicker and see what he can do. It worked out.”

Later, a 47-yard rushing score from Ephrata bruising running back Brayden Brown (20 carries, 140 rushing yards, 1 TD) made it 27-7 near the start of the second quarter.

“We knew Twin Valley was going to keep fighting,” Brown said. “They were 7-0 coming into the game.”

Twin Valley’s top two running backs were banged up and saw just six carries early on before being pulled, though Raiders’ coach Brett Myers didn’t lean on that as an excuse.

It was an advantage for Ephrata in that Miller felt the Mounts had the edge if the Raiders went to the air — Raiders QB Evan Myers finished 10-for-24 with 150 yards.

Twin Valley twice cut its deficit to nine points in the second half but couldn’t get any closer.

And the Mountaineers have now notched their most wins since 2003.

“It means so much,” Brown said. “We just want to make Ephrata good again. Everyone has been throwing us to the side. It’s Ephrata, who cares? We want to change that. That’s what we’re doing.”

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