CHAMBERSBURG — In the finale of six games in the Chambersburg Peach Bowl late Saturday night, the Chambersburg football team had a chance to put an exclamation mark on a big weekend of high school football.
Instead, the Trojans were dominated up front, killed themselves with penalties, fell behind 31-0 to a good team from Central Bucks East and only made the score look better with 21 fourth-quarter points in a 38-21 non-league defeat at Trojan Stadium.
Sedrick Vessah
"They played faster than us and won more plays," Chambersburg coach Mark Luther said. "We ended up putting a lot of sophomores out there — similar to last year — and against their experience we struggled. We have to get them to grow up really fast."
The Patriots, a District 1 team from the Suburban One National Division, were not flashy, but they won the battle at the line of scrimmage and made enough big plays on offense to rack up some points.
The statistics were a bit misleading, with the Trojans ahead in first downs (13-12) and CB East outgaining Chambersburg by only 57 yards. A lot of the Trojans' yardage came late against a second-string defense.
By halftime, CB East had 229 yards and Chambersburg had only 106, and had been tagged for 33 yards in penalties, several of which wiped out big plays. The Trojans ended up with 11 flags for 84 yards.
Luther said, "That's my responsibility to have them ready to play, so that's on me. We didn't do those kinds of things last week, so we'll have to take a look and see why they were happening."
The Patriots scored on the third play from scrimmage, a 74-yard blast by Ethan Shines, who ended up with 17 carries for 146 yards. Jack Corrigan kicked a 35-yard field goal early in the second period, and later, tight end Jack Donnelly caught a 65-yard TD pass from Pat Keller when the safeties got sucked up on a play-action fake and got burned right down the middle of the field.
To open the second half, Chambersburg received the kickoff. Corrigan kicked it short, the ball bounced up, none of the three Trojans near the ball reacted and CB East's Miles Demby caught it on the fly to gain possession.
Four runs by Shines put the ball in the end zone and it was 24-0.
Luther said, "We talked in the locker room about how if we get the ball and score, it's a new game. And then that happened, and instead of maybe 17-7, it's 24-0."
Later in the third, the Patriots held on downs and Luke Quillen made Chambersburg pay, first running for 22 yards, then catching a scoring toss from Keller to make it 31-0.
Chambersburg finally scored with 9:41 left when Riley Harmon hit Andy Jean with a 6-yard slant for a touchdown.
Central Bucks East got its final touchdown on a 1-yard run by Tommy Day, who set up the score with a 46-yard run.
Evan Zullinger entered the game at quarterback for Chambersburg and gave the remaining crowd a lift by hitting receiver J.J. Kelly twice for touchdowns in the final 3 minutes — for 51 yards on a fly down the left side, and then for 40 yards on a post route after Frederick Luna recovered a fumble.
The Trojans used three QBs in the game. Jermere Jones started and hit on 9 of 14 passes for 70 yards and one pick, plus he gained 41 yards on the ground. Harmon was 8-for-13 for 86 yards and a touchdown, while Zullinger was 4-for-5 for 109 yards and 2 scores.
Luther said, "Each quarterback offers something different. Evan had some nice passes at the end, although they had some younger players in. We'll have to evaluate them — all three made some mistakes on their reads."
Chambersburg managed only 74 yards on the ground and CB East gathered in 3 sacks.
"We didn't run the football well enough and they just teed off on us, sending backers on most every play," Luther said. "We have a lot of work ahead of us."
NOTES: Kelly finished with 7 catches for 135 yards in his varsity debut … Dayre Senft led in rushing with 43 yards … Teegan Humelsine kicked 3 extra points and made a great play on a punt — he caught a high snap, rolled to his left and got off a 33-yard kick … On defense, Sedrick Vessah made 8 tackles and recovered a fumble … The Trojans travel to Dillsburg next Friday to take on a good Northern York team at 7 p.m.
Central Bucks East 38, Chambersburg 21
Central Bucks East 7 10 14 7 — 38
Chambersburg 0 0 0 21 — 21
First Quarter
CBE — Ethan Shine 74 run (Jack Corrigan kick), 10:42
Second Quarter
CBE — Corrigan 35 field goal, 11:08
CBE — Jack Donnelly 65 pass from Pat Keller (Corrigan kick), 3:23
Third Quarter
CBE — Shines 6 run (Corrigan kick), 10:28
CBE — Luke Quillen 23 pass from Keller (Corrigan kick), 4:22
Fourth Quarter
Ch — Andy Jean 6 pass from Riley Harmon (Teegan Humelsine kick), 9:41
CBE — Tommy Day 1 run (Corrigan kick), 4:57
Ch — J.J. Kelly 51 pass from Evan Ziullinger (Humelsine kick), 3:03
Ch — Kelly 40 pass from Zullinger (Humelsine kick), 1:15
Team Statistics
CBE Chbg
First downs 12 13
Rushing-yards 38-265 21-74
Passing 9-14-0 21-32-1
Passing yards 70 265
Total offense 396 339
Fumbles-lost 2-2 0-0
Punts-average 2-36 3-33.7
Penalties-yards 8-64 11-84
Individual Statistics
Rushing — CBE, Shines 17-146, Day 10-73, Quillen 1-22, Matt Karpinski 2-7, Donnelly 1-6, Chris Knepp 3-5, BNick Giordano 2-4, Keller 1-1, Declan Kelly 1-1. Chbg, Dayre Senft 4-43, Jones 7-41, Zullinger 1-4, Flenory 7-(-2), Harmon 3-(-12).
Passing — CBE, Keller 5-13-70-0. Chbg, Zullinger 4-5-109-0, Harmon 8-13-86-0, Jones 9-14-70-1.
Receiving — CBE — Donnelly 3-79, Luke Wilson 1-27, Quillen 1-23. Chbg, Kelly 7-135, Rhaigeon Parker 4-62, Jean 3-23, C.J. Bryant 2-18, Shea Makosy 2-13, Jake Folmar 1-12, Bryce Folmar 2-9.
Interceptions — CBE, Matt LaBouliere.
Fumble recoveries — Chbg, Sedrick Vessah, Frederick Luna.
