The Susquehanna Bowl is staying on the west side of the river. Havre de Grace claimed its fourth straight victory in the rivalry with Perryville by downing the Panthers 45-15 Thursday night at Harris Stadium. The host Warriors capitalized on Perryville's inexperience and lack of depth to dominate all three facets of the game and score 45 unanswered points following the Panthers' strong start. "It's called execution," Perryville coach Chris Johnson said, explaining both his team's good beginning and subsequent problems. "When you've got some young guys and you start having some injuries, like our center went down, [and we had to put somebody young in who is a little raw…That kind of hurt us."
Perryville struck first when quarterback Tyler Nasuta hit Braden Yadlosky for a 29-yard touchdown pass with 21 seconds left in the first quarter. It was all Havre de Grace after that. The Warriors answered with a 10-play scoring drive capped by a 12-yard pass from Alex Gresock to Jayden Hyman. Perryville's special teams struggles began when a low snap skipped past the punter and Hyman pounced on the ball in the end zone to give Havre de Grace a 14-7 lead with 6:40 remaining before the break. The Panthers went three-and-out for the second straight series and Havre de Grace's Jordan White returned the punt 52 yards down to the three. Brandon Rabbitt scored on the next play to make it 21-7. The Warriors scored three touchdowns in a span of 3 minutes, 48 seconds. Following a Josh Mergler interception, Nate Brown booted a 36-yard field goal 68 seconds prior to halftime to pad the cushion to 24-7. Rabbitt opened the second half with an electrifying kickoff return. He picked up the ball inside his own 5 yard line and started left before being hemmed in. Rabbitt reversed his field and out-raced several Perryville players across the field to the right side. He then cut back to the middle, and kept going down the left sideline all the way to the Panthers' 15. Tony Bowman scored from a yard out to lengthen the lead to 31-7 2:21 into the third quarter. On the ensuing drive, White recorded his second interception of the game. On the next play, he scooted around the left end for a 40-yard scoring scamper. "Defense, we were playing really well," said Johnson. "One of our safeties had to come out. He was injured … Then special teams gave up 21 points. You can't beat a good football team when you give up 21 points on special teams. It doesn't happen. I felt pretty good about our guys coming out and fighting hard in the second half, down 24-7. Then we give up that big kick return after you have him tackled and that type of thing. But that's what young kids do. Young players tend to make mistakes. We've always been very, very good at special teams. I'm really disappointed about our special teams play." Hyman had another interception to set up a 5-yard TD run by Gresock to provide Havre de Grace with a 45-7 advantage and keep the clock running. Nasuta's 2-yard TD plunge with 3:41 remaining accounted for the final score. The Panthers' Kenyetta Bailey gained 111 yards on 21 carries. Liam Johnson recorded two sacks. Havre de Grace, a state semifinalist last season, has dominated Perryville in recent years after the Panthers had a good run when Johnson took over the program. "When you're a 1A school you go through cycles," the coach said. "They're on an up cycle right now. When I came into Perryville, they already had talent so there was an up cycle already there. It just needed to be kind of put together. So I came in at that time and rode that for a couple years and had good success. I think, with these young guys, if they continue to work hard and lift, and really put in the time, I think they have the potential to be a good football team. I think even this year I think we have the potential and the makings of a good football team. We just need to continue to work hard in practice. I told the kids I'm disappointed not in them, but for them because they came out, were playing very well, and then a couple hiccups, a couple injuries, and it was our fly in the ointment." Comments are closed.
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