By Harold Raker
LEWISBURG — Moscarello, Moscarello, Affsprung, Raup and Brown. Sound like a law firm?
No, it’s the starting linebacker corps for Lewisburg — Joe and Merle Moscarello, Joe Affsprung and Nate Brown.
From the opening play, those five and their Green Dragons teammates laid down the law against Montgomery, especially its highly-touted quarterback, Cody Kulago.
Lewisburg rolled to a 42-0 halftime advantage and won by that same score in Saturday’s matinee at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium.
Although the statistics show that the Green Dragons had just one sack (by Raup) in this Heartland Athletic Conference Division III contest, that is only because Kulago usually found a way to get rid of the ball, often while on his way to his back. And he often watched the end of the play while lying or sitting on the ground.
“Having a big quarterback like they had, we knew we had to keep him inside. We couldn’t let him run,” said sophomore Merle Moscarello, who also scored on a 30-yard run.
“With everybody playing right, everybody did their responsibilities, and we all came out there like a team and we kept him where we wanted him. He got a couple on us, but we kept the pressure on him and as the game went on, we backed him up.”
Lewisburg coach Todd Tilford said, “We have a lot of guys returning on defense and we have a lot of guys who can run to the ball and put pressure on people.”
The Red Raiders (0-2, 0-2) showed some signs of life at times, but couldn’t overcome five turnovers (three lost fumbles in the first half and two interceptions in the second half). Tilford sent the reserves onto the field with 7 minutes, 30 seconds left in the second quarter.
“I’ve been on the other end of that and we are confident of our second group,“ Tilford said. “We had a lot of guys get some meaningful snaps, and that’s only ging to help us down the road.”
It was so bad for Montgomery that the Red Raiders couldn’t score with their first team in the entire game against Lewisburg’s third-string players.
Montgomery third-year coach Randy Boone simply said, “I have no comments.”
But, as the score indicated, this game was more than another outstanding performance by the Lewisburg defense. This time, the offense joined in early and often.
Lewisburg (2-0, 2-0) scored on its first play from scrimmage, after Brown recovered a Montgomery fumble on the third play of the game. Green Dragons quarterback Jay Mathias scored the first of his two touchdowns, but the most unremarkable of the two, as he went around the right side for a 23-yard score with 10:19 left in the opening quarter. Robbie Gaines added the first of his six extra point kicks.
After a three-and-out on Montgomery’s second series, Lewisburg drove 68 yards in 12 plays, with Brown scoring the first of his two TDs, on a 2-yard run with 4:53 left in the first quarter.
Montgomery followed with its best drive of the game as Kulago threaded the needle between three defenders for a completion to Sean Farley at the 4-yard line. But two incompletions and a tackle for a loss by tackle Cody Fisher made it fourth-and-goal, and Fisher stopped Bolton Harer on a fake field goal to end the a 14-play drive.
Three plays later, Mathias turned in his highlight-reel TD, a remarkable 82-yarder. He started inside, cut right, then back across the field, slipping tackles, following blocks and wiping out the final would-be tackler with a stiff-arm at the 4-yard line.
The play was designed as an inside belly, but Mathias saw something better.
“I got up through the hole and then using my athletic ability after that, getting to the outside, I felt a cutback lane, so I was able to cut it back. I was pretty gassed at the end. The last 15 yards were pretty hard,” Mathias said.
Mathias credited the defense with taking the pressure off the offense. “They definitely made it easy for us; I love our defense.”
Moscarello added, “The game plan was to get out there and get them down and keep them down, and that’s what we did.”
Tilford said, “After a slow start last week, it was exciting to see the kind of pressure Jay can put on other defenses. He can throw the ball on the run and he is very athletic. (On the 82-yard TD), we had 10 guys downfield. It was good to see guys getting after it because they know Jay is capable of that. The hustle downfield on that run, I was impressed as a coach.”
Brown added a 10-yard TD; Fisher, inserted at fullback, bulled in for a 1-yard score; and Merle Moscarello had a tough 35-yard TD run, bouncing off a tackle at the line and then going untouched through the secondary to make it 42-0.
