PECKVILLE – The Pittston Area football team has been down this road before.
Granted it was a different group of Patriots a year ago, but coach Nick Barbieri is well aware that arriving at the midway point in the season with a 2-3 record by allowing six touchdowns to a defending champion Valley View team does not mean all hopes for a successful campaign are over.
“I thought after the last couple of weeks that we were improving, but we’ve got more work to do,” coach Barbieri said after Friday night’s 41-7 loss to the Cougars in a non-league football game at John Henzes/Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Pittston Area also opened last season with losses to Class 6A Hazleton Area and Williamsport before winning two straight, then falling to Valley View. Last year, it was a 4-1 Valley View team coming off a District 2 Class 4A championship. This time around, it is a 5-0 Cougars team, coming off its Lackawanna Football Conference Division 1 title and ranked No. 3 in the Times Leader District 2 Top 10.
There is not much difference between a 34-point road loss and a 27-point home loss, just as there is not much difference between last season’s 128-101 scoring deficit to the midway point and this season’s 113-71.
Encouragement for the Patriots comes in a reminder of what happened next a year ago.
Pittston Area won the five Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 games that were left, completing a 6-0 season in the division for its first title in 20 years.
“We were in the same position a year ago – 2-3 coming into our five-game league schedule,” Barbieri said. “We just have to see if we can pull off the same magic we did last year.”
The Patriots go on that pursuit with a much younger squad this time around, but one that has shown signs of potential, including in a Friday night first quarter in which it played the Cougars to a standstill. Each team had two first downs in the defensive struggle, Pittston Area had a 26-23 edge in total offense and had the two best threats, reaching the Valley View 32 twice.
Yards and first downs were still dead even until the game changed dramatically on the third play of the second quarter.
Nick Kucharski, one of the rotating Valley View quarterbacks, took the direct snap and raced 55 yards down the left side to the Pittston Area 10.
Dominic Memo then went under center and ran a quarterback trap to score from there on the next play.
Memo’s touchdown was the first of three by the Cougars in 5:19 of the second quarter for a 21-0 lead.
Casey Malsberger, who spent the most time at quarterback, threw touchdown passes of 48 yards to Christopher Savkov and 6 yards to Gianni Marino.
Savkov’s touchdown came one play after he picked off a pass at midfield for the game’s only turnover.
Valley View forced a quick three-and-out and took over at the 50 on its way to Marino’s touchdown.
The Cougars outrushed the Patriots, 300-41, using the combination of their ground game and their pass pressure to reach the Mercy Rule at 35-0 with 4:31 left in the third quarter.
Drew DeLucca was held to 7-for-22 passing with most of his throws coming while in retreat from a constant Valley View pass rush.
“Drew was on the run,” Barbieri said. “ … They had a good game plan. They were going to pressure us, play man and take away our quick game. I give them credit for that.
“We tried to run the ball a little bit, but weren’t very successful.”
Valley View had no trouble in that area once Kucharski’s run loosened up the Pittston Area defense. After gaining just 13 yards on their first eight carries (1.6 average), they churned out 19.1 per attempt the rest of the way (15-for-287).
“We’re really trying to spread it around,” first-year Cougars head coach Scot Wasilchak said. “We have a lot of athletes. I want to get everyone involved and I think that makes us difficult to defend when we’re doing that.”
When the game was turned over to both team’s reserves, back-up Pittston Area quarterback Victor Narsavage went 4-for-6 for 65 yards and a touchdown. His 7-yard pass to Colton Lis on the first play of the fourth quarter broke the shutout.
Valley View got the score back on the next play on a 65-yard sprint by Gabe Davis.
BY THE NUMBERS
Valley View had five players rush for between 74 and 33 yards and got its 300 yards on the ground without any player carrying more than seven times. Preston Reed broke a 57-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to finish with 74 yards on six carries. Nick Kucharski carried just twice and picked up 67 yards. The 65-yard touchdown came on the only carry for Gabe Davis. Camryn Higgins had 44 yards on his last four carries to finish 7-for-47. Dominic Memo produced touchdowns on both his carries, adding a 23-yarder in the third quarter for 33 yards total. … Pittston Area’s Matt Walter, with five catches for 56 yards, and Valley View’s Christopher Savkov, with four catches for 69 yards, were the game’s top receivers. Blake Jaworski had two catches for 44 yards, one of them a 35-yarder on third-and-12, during Pittston Area’s only scoring drive. … Gerry Groom led the Pittston Area defense with six tackles, including one for a loss, and two assists. … Six different Cougars rushed Pittston Area’s Drew DeLucca into first-half incompletions. … Pittston Area not only swept through the second-half schedule with five straight wins last season, but did so by at least 29 points in each game.
UP NEXT
Pittston Area (1-0 in the division, 2-3 overall) hosts Nanticoke (1-1, 2-3) in a WVC Division 2 game Friday night. The Trojans figured to join Wyoming Area as the top threats to Pittston Area’s title defense, but have been hurt by backfield injuries. They remain strong up front, particularly on defense. Zack Fox returned from missing the 35-13 loss to Wyoming Area to carry 14 times for 181 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown, in Friday’s 42-0 rout of Lake-Lehman. Fox has more than 3,000 career rushing yards after surpassing 1,000 in both his sophomore and junior seasons. The imposing defensive end combination of Jaidlyn Johnson and Seth Raymer also teamed up a passing touchdown with Raymer finding Johnson.
