By Rob Wheary, Staff Writer • csrobwheary@gmail.com

Lon Zeiders/Citizen-Standard Photo A block from Viking teammate on Tribe’s Dillon Gordon springs Dylan Rabuck on a run for paydirt.

MILLERSBURG — Williams Valley geared themselves up for the “Battle of the Valleys”, the matchup with Tri-Valley on Oct. 21 with a 39-13 victory over Millersburg at the Indians’ home field on Oct. 14.
The Vikings’, now 7-1 on the season, had the game in the mercy rule in the third quarter but Millersburg kept scrapping, scoring two touchdowns against the second stringers before time ran out.
After Millersburg put together a drive to start the game that went 40 yards, including a 25-yard carry by Cole Shomper, the drive stalled at the Williams Valley 30 where the Vikings took over on downs. All they needed was one play — give the ball to Dylan Rabuck.
Rabuck ran through the defense and was off to the races, 70 yards for a score in 15 seconds. The extra point was missed and Williams Valley led 6-0.

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MIKE LEITER/For The Citizen-Standard Williams Valley’s Colten Rebuck, in white, works the ball down field against Tri-Valley’s Cameron Schultz during boys soccer action on Wednesday, Sept. 28. Williams Valley won this game in the crosstown rivalry, 7-0.

Minersville 3, Tri-Valley 0
HEGINS — Tri-Valley was shutout for the second-straight game, this time to Minersville in action on Oct. 1
Kole Ney stopped 12 shots in goal for the 0-13 Tri-Valley Bulldogs
Minersville — 2 1 — 3
Tri-Valley — 0 0 — 0
M — Rinaldo (unassisted), 12:00
M — Hertz (unassisted), 26:38
M — Smith (unassisted), 58:04.
Salisbury 5, Pine Grove 1
ALLENTOWN — Luke Reiter was the only scorer for Pine Grove as they suffered their third defeat of the season, this one a non-league loss to Salisbury.
Jason Soper stopped six shots in the loss.
Pine Grove — 1 0 — 1
Salisbury — 5 0 — 5 (more…)

By Rob Wheary, Staff Writer • csrobwheary@gmail.com

MILLERSBURG – All things were clicking for Tri-Valley in their matchup with Millersburg on Sept. 30 as the Bulldogs left Indian Stadium with a 42-7 victory in Tri-Valley football action.
The biggest stat of the night was Millersburg having minus-3 yards offense for the entire game, despite putting seven points on the board. Compare that to the Bulldogs, who had 410 yards of offense on the night, 181 of that coming from the rushing attack of Danny Scheib.
It was Millersburg that struck first on the scoreboard in the matchup. After both teams exchanged possessions, Millersburg took advantage of the Tri-Valley mishandled punt, getting the ball on the Bulldog 44.
With a bit of trickery on the receiver from quarterback Aiden Harman to Cole Shomper who passed it to Matthew Koppenhaver for a 26-yard gain. From there, Shomper took the ball the rest of the way, scoring four plays later with a six-yard run that gave Millersburg a 7-0 lead. (more…)

By Rob Wheary, Staff Writer • csrobwheary@gmail.com

DUNCANNON – With a patented rushing attack and the defense coming up big in the latter stages of the game, Line Mountain came up with a big win 33-7 over Susquenita in Tri-Valley league action Friday night at Blackhawk Stadium,
Line Mountain struck first on the scoreboard. After getting the ball late in the first quarter and carrying it over into the second, the Eagles put together an impressive drive through the rushing efforts of quarterback Kenny Boyer and backs Brent Osman and Cole Hauck. Boyer did the majority of the work, carrying the ball six times out of 12 plays, including the final one for the first score of the night.
Running a bootleg off the left side, Boyer found daylight scoring from 35 yards out, putting Line Mountain up 6-0 after the two-point conversion was broken up by the Blackhawk defense.
Not to be outdone, Susquenita put together a long drive of its own. Earlier in the first quarter, the Blackhawks came together for an opening drive that saw them go 61 yards, driving down to the Line Mountain 10.
Susquenita appeared to have the touchdown when quarterback Dane Barrick found receiver Stephen Heckert in the end zone, but the points were taken away by a holding call. A number of penalties later and a 12-yard sack of Barrick and the Blackhawks were facing fourth-and-goal on the Line Mountain 29. A Barrick pass was complete to Trent McGuire, but short and Line Mountain took over on downs.
Susquenita’s second drive seemed to sputter the same way before Barrick connected with McGuire on a 49-yard reception that put them from their own 29 to the Eagle 22.
Four plays later, Barrick found Joey Hestor for a 13-yard touchdown. The kick was good and Susquenita led 7-6 with 5:18 to go.
The Eagles battled back late in the half, putting together a drive that took over the rest of the half, with Line Mountain using its running game to drive down the field.
Eventually, the Eagles found itself with a with a first and goal at the Susquenita 5. Boyer ran the ball up the middle taking it to the 1. The Blackhawk goal line defense hung tough and time ran out on the Eagles.
“That was a mistake on our part, the coaching staff.” Coach Brandon Carson said. “Luckily, our kids battled back.
At the start of the second half, /Susquenita dove again, this time heading for the Line Mountain 14 before coughing up the football and turning it over.
Again Boyer and the Eagles made the Blackhawks pay, putting together a nine-play drive that ended with Osman scoring from 4 yards out, putting Line Mountain up 12-7 midway through the third.
In the fourth. The /eagle defense came up big, notching three interceptions that Line Mountain was able to convert into 21 unanswered points, making the final score 33-7.
After the game, Carson was happy with the effort of Boyer and the rest of his team.
“Our record is great right now but we have beaten teams that haven’t won a game this season,” the coach said. “We have a big stretch of tough games coming up and we need to step up now.”
Line Mountain — 0 6 6 21 — 33
Susquenita — 0 7 0 0 — 7
Scoring summary
Second quarter
LM — Kenny Boyer 35-yd run (conversion failed
S — Joey Hestor 13-yd pass from Dane Barrick (Noleswanger kick)
Third quarter
LM — Brent Osman 4-yard run (conversion failed)
Fourth quarter
LM — Boyer 2-yd run (Kai Smith kick)
LM — Boyer 2-yd run (Smith kick)
LM — David Quinn 25-yard interception return (Smith kick)
Team stats
FIRST DOWNS: LM -11 S-8
RUSHING: LM-41-258 S-22-111
PASSING: LM-5-10-0 S-7-13-3
PASSING YARDS: LM-71 S-162
TOTAL YARDS: LM-329. S-273
PENALTIES: LM-7-49 S-8-91
Individual Stats
RUSHING: Line Mountain — Boyer 25-193, Cregger 1-2, Osman 9-50, Cole Hauck 4-12, Gary Laudenslager 2-1; Susquenita — Trent McGuire 9-34, Dane Barrick 10-73, Russ Amick 2-15, Antonio Garcia 1-1
PASSING: Line Mountain — Kenny Boyer 5-10-0, 71 yards; Susquenita — Dane Barrick. 7-13-3, 162 yards
RECEIVING: Line Mountain — David Quinn 1-13, Cole Hauck 1-26, Osman 1-24, Cregger 2-22; Susquenita — Trent McGuire 5-120, Joey Hestor 2-20, Stephen Heckert 2-22.

By Rob Wheary, Staff Writer • csrobwheary@gmail.com

LON ZEIDERS/For The Citizen-Standard Upper Dauphin’s Donny Gelnett braces for contact with Dawgs’ ballcarrier Danny Scheib during Tri-Valley League football action on Sept. 9. Scheib scored Tri-Valley’s first touchdown en route to a 46-13 win in Elizabethville.

ELIZABETHVILLE – While the scoreboard may have said 46-13 in favor of Tri-Valley, both teams claimed a bit of a victory in their Tri-Valley League matchup at Trojan Stadium Sept. 9.
For Upper Dauphin, the game marked the first points of the season for them, coming in the second half with Tri-Valley already leading 40-0.
“We definitely made some progress tonight,” said UDA head coach Brent Bell following the game. “We drove the ball in the first half, but couldn’t get it in. We changed some things up this week, but some injuries late in the week caused us to shuffle some things again but once we have a full solid week of practice, these guys are going to come out and continue to fight this year.”
Tri-Valley struck early and often in the game. After holding Upper Dauphin to a three-and-out series in the opening possession, the Bulldogs used good field position to start at their own 45-yard line. Quarterback Logan Yoder used his passing ability along with the rushing of Danny Scheib to put together a six play, 55-yard drive, highlighted by a 32-yard reception by Ashton Buchanan and capped off with Scheib’s eight-yard run to put the Bulldogs up 7-0 with 8:01 left in the first quarter.

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Teams gear up for opening week of action on Friday

By Rob Wheary, Staff Writer • csrobwheary@gmail.com

Line Mountain

ROB WHEARY/Staff Photo Brenden Cregger makes his way through a hole in the defense during Line Mountain football practice recently at the Glenn Ressler Field at Eagle Stadium. Practices for all fall sports began on Aug. 15 and the first football action will be this coming Friday with the Eagles taking on the Tri-Valley Bulldogs in opening night action.

If there’s anyone in District 4 who would have liked for the PIAA to continue allowing two football scrimmages during the preseason, it’s probably first-year Line Mountain head coach Brandon Carson. Fortunately for Carson and the Eagles, there wasn’t much to complain about as far as performances go during Saturday’s scrimmage at Muncy.
“For the most part, we played very well. That was the pleasant surprise for us — everyone seemed to live up to exactly what we expected,” Carson said.
Carson said there were some missed play calls and other minor errors that are to be expected during a season opening scrimmage, especially when the Eagles were tasked with learning a revamped offensive scheme during the offseason.

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Submitted Photo Members and coaches of the Schuylkill West VFW All-Star Team captured the state VFW 15-16 year-old championship, going undefeated in tournament play in Mount Union on July 30 through August 2.

MOUNT UNION — Schuylkill West became the latest county squad to bring home a VFW Teener State Championship Trophy.
The team got a big game from Dawson Schwalm to pick up a 7-1 victory over Altoona in the championship game Tuesday morning.
Schwalm came up big on the mound, holding Altoona to just four hits in the game, their only run coming in the first with an RBI single.
Schuylkill West took the early 1-0 lead in the first inning, getting its run from an RBI double by Jake Masser. That’s the way the game would stay until the fifth inning when Schwalm gave Schuylkill West the lead for good with a RBI double to the fence, scoring Willie Kimmel from first. Schwalm scored on an Alex Witmer single, making the score 3-1 after five innings.
With the game in hand, Schuykill West kept pouring it on. With two outs in the sixth, Brett Anspach and Kimmel had RBI doubles to push the game to 5-1, followed by a two-run single by Dawson Maurer that put the score at 7-1.

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Women’s PA State Championship Road Race coming to Millersburg

By Rebecca Zemencik, Managing Editor • rebecca-z@citizenstandard.com

MILLERSBURG – The borough will be a busy place this weekend as bicycle race enthusiasts will descend on Millersburg for the 10th Annual tour de Millersburg.
In commemoration of the 10th anniversary, Millersburg will host the 2016 PA State Championship Women’s Road Race.
“We are anticipating a great turnout of 225 people or more, but the weather looks iffy for Saturday and that could hurt us,” said Chris Dietz, organizer of the event. “So far we have more registrants than we did at this time last year.”

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Team makes it to championship round, finishes second

Keystone 9, Tri-Valley 1
CRESSONA — One inning turned out to be the difference in Tri-Valley’s run in the Little League playoffs.
With the two teams scoreless for the first half of the game, Keystone scored nine runs in the fourth inning to end Tri-Valley’s season. Landin Bordner and Keystone’s Cru Stover were locked in a pitcher’s duel for the first few innings before a series of walks, errors and hits put the game away for Keystone.
Tri-Valley’s only run came in the sixth, starting with a walk to Jake Tietsworth, a wild pitch to move him to second and then Mason Boltz bringing him home with a double, but that would be all she wrote for the local heroes, finishing second in the section playoffs.
Tri-Valley — 000 001 — 1 6 2
Keystone — 000 90x — 9 7 0
W — Stover. L — Bordner.
Hits: Tri-Valley — Wetzel, Bordner 2, Boltz 2, Umbenhauer. Keystone — Stover 2, Conklin, A. Probst 2, Irvin 2.
2B — Bordner.

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SAYRE – Upper Dauphin County’s run in the Section 3 12-year-old division tournament came to an end July 19, with a loss to South Columbia in Sayre.
With South Columbia leading 4-3 in the fourth, the team tagged on four runs in their half of the inning, making the score 8-3. Upper Dauphin came back in the sixth but left two base runners on at the end of the game.

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