COUDERSPORT — Take a look at the scores of the Allegheny Mountain League’s North Division as it squared off against the South on Friday night and it looks as if what happened at Coudersport was just one of the blowouts.
It wasn’t.
The game Falcons actually led 8-0 and were behind only 14-8 early in the fourth quarter until the Elkers, the defending District 9 Class A champions, wore Coudy down en route to a 29-8 victory in the season opener for both teams.
Ridgway senior running back Neil MacDonald rushed for 133 yards on 16 carries with scoring runs of 3 and 61 yards and Elkers senior quarterback Johnny Mitchell totaled 96 yards on 15 tries with a pair of 1-yard QB sneaks for scores.
The stats ended compellingly with Ridgway holding the edge in first downs, 19-4, rushing yards, 305-41 and total offense 341-68.
But it was still a one possession game into the final period.
“I’m very happy, Coudersport is a very tough place to play and coach (Tom) Storey is doing a great job with these kids,” Elkers coach Mark Heindl said. “We knew we hadn’t won up here in almost 20 years and a lot of our seniors had a bitter taste in their mouth from two years ago when they lost 13-7 … that was our motivation.
“We went down 8-0 but our kids responded and I couldn’t be any happier. We wore them down (in the fourth quarter) because when you have 55 kids it makes life easy.”
Storey, a former Coudy star in his first year, admitted “We knew they were tough coming in and we tried to get our guys motivated. But we’ve still got to figure out where we’re at.
“We were right there … I’ve been telling the guys all week long that they’ve got to believe. They’re there but we’re still trying to build a program and it’s going to take some shots like this … hopefully we can keep pushing them.”
He added, “There were holes early in the game and driving down (to score on a 13-yard Jared Green to David Burd pass) shows we’re there. We saw a lot of opportunities … our biggest thing is to keep pushing the guys on execution, that’s what we’ve got to work on.”
Then, too, Coudersport’s roster of 35 includes eight freshmen, Ridgway’s squad is entirely sophomores, juniors and seniors.
“I’ve got to get the boys in a little better shape … being a small school we’ve got to worry about our numbers at times … trying to get them to buy into the program and that’s something I’ve got to sell,” Storey said.
“Working against a team that has 55 kids or so and established — they were District 9 Class A champs last year — we’ve got to get the guys to believe. It’s a hard schedule the first four (all AML South foes) … (but) I don’t like when people say ‘Survive the South,’ (it’s 60-2 against the North the last three years), but we’ll keep showing up every week and doing what we’ve got to do.”
BY QUARTERS
Ridgway 0 14 0 15-29
Coudersport 0 8 0 0-8
Team Statistics
First Downs: Ridgway 19, Coudersport 4; Rushes/Yards Rushing: Ridgway 56-305, Coudersport 28-41; Yards Passing: Ridgway 36, Coudersport 27; Comp-Att-Int: Ridgway 3-12-0, Coudersport 5-13-0; Punts: Ridgway 5-28.0, Coudersport 9-31.2; Penalties: Ridgway 1-12, Coudersport 4-30; Fumbles-Lost: Ridgway 5-1, Coudersport 2-0; Total Yards: Ridgway 341, Coudersport 68; Offensive Plays: Ridgway 68, Coudersport 41
Scoring Summary
Second Quarter
Coudersport — David Burd 13 pass from Jared Green (27yards, 8 plays after fumble recovery); Chase Whitman run, 8-0
Ridgway — Johnny Mitchell 1 run (65 yards, 12 plays); Neil MacDonald run, 8-8
Ridgway — MItchell 1 run (57 yards, 6 plays); kick failed, 8-14
Fourth Quarter
Ridgway — Mitchell 3 run (51 yards, 7 plays); Aaron Hinton kick, 8-21
Ridgway — MacDonald 61 run (56 yard, 2 plays); Max Cowan run, 8-29
