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Big Spring's big lead subdues Greencastle, 49-21


A familiar coaches' line goes: “You are what your record says you are.”

Friday night in Newville, when the Greencastle-Antrim Blue Devils visited the Big Spring Bulldogs in a Mid Penn Colonial Division football game, that proved true.

The Bulldogs (5-1, 3-0 MPC), led by junior Ryan Adams, exploded for 443 yards of offense against Greencastle (1-5, 1-2 MPC). In three quarters of play, Ryan accounted for 145 yards on the ground, another 67 receiving and four touchdowns as he sliced through the Blue Devil defense in a 49-21 win.

“It was nothing I personally did well," Adams said, "just the offensive line. It was probably the best job the line has done all year.”

It wasn’t only an impressive offensive performance from Big Spring - the Bulldogs dominated all three phases of the game, blocking Greencastle's first attempt to score on a 35-yard field goal. That 's the way the game went for G-A, which struggled mightily to get things going on both sides of the ball.

Big Spring struck first when quarterback Jaret Petty hooked up with Adams for a 23-yard touchdown reception just four minutes into the game.

The onslaught began when Petty threw a 39-yard TD pass to Nick Black. After a Blue Devil missed field goal, Adams snapped off an 80-yard touchdown run to put Big Spring ahead 21-0.

The following “squib” kickoff bounced off a Greencastle player and finished in the hands of the Bulldogs, who wasted no time scoring another touchdown when Petty completed a 41-yard strike to Adams, putting the Bulldogs up 28-0 going into halftime.

Tim Bowers then returned the kickoff 85 yards to open the second half and that was all she wrote for the Blue Devils, putting them down 35-0 and kicking in the mercy rule. Greencastle scored three touchdowns late against the Bulldog backups.

Big Spring coach Cory Hoffman credited his third down defense to being a major part of the victory.

“Last week we had trouble getting off the field on third and fourth down - some of that was the (wet) field, some of that was us," Hoffman said. "The guys really focused this week on tackling better, which I think helped us get off the field in those situations."

Greencastle will head back to the drawing board to prepare to host unbeaten Shippensburg.

Big Spring 49, Greencastle-Antrim 21 

Greencastle _ 0 _ 0 _ 0 _ 21 _ — _ 21

Big Spring _ 7 _ 21 _ 14 _ 7 _ — _ 49

First Quarter

BS — Ryan Adams 22 pass from Jaret Petty (Jared Gump kick), 8:16

Second Quarter

BS — Nick Black 39 pass from Petty (Gump kick), 8:21

BS — Adams 80 run (Gump kick), 5:01

BS — Adams 41 TD reception from Petty (Gump kick), 4:19

Third Quarter

BS — Tim Bowers 85 kickoff return (Gump kick), 11:47

BS — Adams 25 run (Gump kick), 7:26

Fourth Quarter

GA — Demetrius Burton 9 run (Ian Geisinger kick), 10:17

GA — Cade McDowell 9 run (Geisinger kick), 3:54

BS — Ethan Lee 46 run (Gump kick) 1:45

GA — Cade McDowell 7 run (Geisinger kick), 0:14

Team Statistics

_ G-A _ BS

First downs _ 12 _ 14

Rushes-yards _ 47-228 _ 28-277

Passing _ 1-7-0 _ 8-14-0

Passing yards _ 4 _ 154

Total yards _ 232 _ 431

Punts _ 5-33.0 _ 3-38.0

Fumbles-lost _ 2-2 _ 1-0

Penalties-yards _ 3-35 _ 2-15

Individual Statistics

Rushing — GA: Burton 22-94, Caleb Schaeffer 8-53, McDowell 8-29, Kyrin Zimmerman 4-15, Tanner Bain 4-9. BS: Adams 14-145, Charles Bowers 5-20, Lee 2-58, Nathan Fetchkam 3-12.

Passing — GA: McDowell 1-7-4-0, BS: Petty 8-14-154-0.

Receiving — GA: Kyrin Zimmerman 1-4. BS: Adams 4-67, Nick Black 2-75, Joseph Yaukey 2-12