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Mifflin County line wears down Greencastle, 36-17


The Mifflin County Huskies put a damper on Greencastle-Antrim’s Homecoming game, pulling away in the second half to win a Mid Penn Colonial Division football game by a score of 36-17 Friday night.

The Huskies and the Blue Devils were both coming off their first wins of the season and the momentum created by those victories was easy to see as the game kicked off. The whole first quarter was tightly contested, and the Blue Devils were first to get on the board on Cade McDowell's 2-yard run. Mifflin County struggled on the ground, slipping in the backfield multiple times and turning the ball over on downs.

But the Huskies got a grip and quickly returned the favor, scoring twice to lead 14-10 at the half.

The third quarter was where things took a downhill turn for the Blue Devils (1-4, 1-1 MPC) as their line began to struggle with the size of Mifflin County. The Huskies' line began to break through and tackle runners behind the line and also caused three fumbles, one of which they recovered. This required the Blue Devils to start running swing plays and outside runs since they were losing the battle in the middle.

"Up front we were having a hard time running on the inside, but we managed to take advantage of things on the outside,” Greencastle coach Chuck Tinninis said. “But we couldn’t manage to put anything together in the second half.”

Things got even worse for Greencastle when starting quarterback Cade McDowell took a hard hit and was forced out of the game with a concussion, further limiting the Devils' options on offense. As usual, the G-A offense was mostly reliant on its run game, but McDowell had been throwing the ball well before he went out.

McDowell made a beautiful pass on a fake field goal at the end of the first half that set up a shorter field goal by Ian Gelsinger (28 yards) and brought the score to within 14-10 at the half.

The Blue Devil defense played well for the most part, but was vulnerable to big plays both in the air and on the ground in the second half.

"Well, we definitely had trouble with giving up the big play," Tinninis said, "And as the game went on our defense wore down."

Malik Selcher was a headache for Greencastle - he had multiple kick returns that made it deep into Blue Devil territory, in addition to 30 receiving yards and 47 rushing yards.

"The second half was much better than the first half," Mifflin County coach Brent Hartman said. "We should have scored a couple more times in the first, but we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times."

The win was the first road win for the Huskies (2-3, 2-0 MPC) since 2013 and the first time they had won two consecutive games since becoming a member of the Mid Penn Conference.

Mifflin County 36, Greencastle 17 

Mifflin Co. _ 14 _ 0 _ 15 _ 7 _ — _ 36

Greencastle _ 7 _ 3 _ 0 _ 7 _ — _ 17

First Quarter

GA — Cade McDowell 2 run (Ian Gelsinger kick), 6:20

MC — Drew Williams 2 run (Davis Wagner kick), 1:47

MC — Cole Baker 8 run (Wagner kick), 0:57

Second Quarter

GA — Gelsinger 28 field goal, 0:00

Third Quarter

MC — Isaac Maclay 4 run (Maclay pass from Williams), 6:19

MC — Williams 1 run (Wagner kick), 1:24

Fourth Quarter

MC — Maclay 5 run (Wagner kick), 9:31

GA — Kyrin Zimmerman 1 run (Gelsinger kick), 3:19

Team Statistics

_ MC _ G-A

First downs _ 13 _ 15

Rushes-yards _ 35-208 _ 46-233

Passing _ 3-8-1 _ 4-8-1

Passing yards _ 64 _ 62

Total yards _ 272 _ 295

Punts _ 4-34 _ 3-29

Fumbles-lost _ 3-1 _ 2-1

Penalties-yards _ 3-20 _ 2-30

Individual Statistics

Rushing — MC: Drew Williams 10-21, Isaac Maclay 9-32, Cole Baker 6-82, Malik Selcher 4-47, Isaac Matthews 3-20, Gabriel Winkles 1-5, Noah Wright 2-1. GA: Demetrius Burton 16-69, Tanner Bain 10-63, Kyrin Zimmerman 6-48, Caleb Schaeffer 5-16, Cade McDowell 5-7, Austin Kane 3-24, Hayden Rhoe 1-6.

Passing — MC: Drew Williams 3-8-61-1. GA: Cade McDowell 4-8-62-1.

Receiving — MC: Isaac Maclay 2-34, Selcher 1-30. GA: Kyrin Zimmerman 1-31, Caleb Schaeffer 1-28, Antwoine Carter 1-9, Cade Marshall 1-4.

Interceptions — MC: Cole Peachey. GA: Antwoine Carter.