Friday Night Leftovers: Northern Lebanon's back
Recapping Week 7 Lebanon County football action in this week's edition of Friday Night Leftovers...
Pride comes to the surface for Northern Lebanon
There were tactical and schematic reasons for the turnaround, but mostly Northern Lebanon's season-saving - for now - 32-14 win at Annville-Cleona on Friday night was more about good old-fashioned pride than anything else.
The Vikings, the two-time defending Section 3 champs, knew they were better than the 2-4 squad they walked in to A-C as on Friday night, and they went out and proved it while shedding some of the frustration and disappointment of the first six weeks.
"I think we're a better team than we've been showing," junior quarterback Michigan Daub said. "It felt good, to get one for the crowd, the coaches and the other players on the team. We stayed hungry, and we just wanted to win really bad."
Though still without its best running back, Luke Funck, and lineman, Hunter Wallace, because of injury, Northern Lebanon looks to have found its best form again and is back in the hunt to at least share the section crown for a third straight season.
Hoch stars in defeat for A-C
It wasn't a good night for his team, but Annville-Cleona's Cameron Hoch again showed why he's one of the top all-around players in Lebanon County on Friday night.
Though Hoch wasn't blameless in the loss to NL, he turned in another mostly stellar performance in all phases of the game.
He rushed 9 times for 140 yards, including a 64-yard TD run. He threw a 79-yard TD pass on a trick play. He caught 3 passes for 53 yards, including an acrobatic 30-yard reception. And he shined briefly on defense, too, beautifully anticipating an option pitch on a two-point conversion try by the Vikings and knocking the ball harmlessly to the ground.
The kid's only got a few more games left in his high school career. If you get a chance to watch him play, don't miss it.
Big bounce-back win for Palmyra
Last Friday's 14-10 showdown loss to Middletown, its first of the season, was hardly a disheartening one for Palmyra given the high level that it played at. But it was a loss nonetheless, so it was imperative for the Cougars to not let the defeat linger when they hosted Steel-High on Homecoming Friday night.
It didn't. Palmyra jumped out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter and never looked back in a 42-14 dismantling of the Rollers.
The Cougars should have had very few doubters heading into the Steel-High game - this is a quality team on both sides of the ball - but if they did their numbers surely decreased on Friday night.
Another test awaits Palmyra on Friday night at East Pennsboro, and it looks like it'll be ready for it.
Elco finds its way back to the victory column
Three weeks ago, it came up a yard short of victory. Two weeks ago, it was a point shy of a big win. Last week, the gap between victory and defeat was a little wider but not a lot.
In short, it had been a rough three weeks for the Elco football team and it needed to find a way to avoid another disheartening loss when Columbia came calling on Friday night.
The Raiders did so emphatically, finding their mojo again in a 43-24 victory that featured 209 combined rushing yards from Tyler Horst and Kyle Knight.
"It was big," Elco coach Bob Miller told correspondent Julie Beidler. "To see them have some success and to finish drives, that’s a real testament to them. That’s what I’m taking away from tonight."