Pine Grove’s three pronged attack of Josh Leininger, Brody Robinson, and Shea Morgan is widely known to rack up hundreds of yards per game. The issue for their opponent is to limit these three players in order to pick up a win. After two previous losses, Blue Mountain’s key was to limit their turnovers and capitalize on drives in the red zone. Pine Grove took advantage of key Blue Mountain turnovers, and the Cardinals held a 20-12 lead throughout the whole second half to take their first victory of the season.
On Friday October 2nd, the Blue Mountain Eagles played host to the Cardinals from Pine Grove Area. After an exciting week leading up to the game, Blue Mountain students were prepared to attend the game until Thursday afternoon when Governor Wolf’s restrictions were back in place. Pine Grove opened the game by going three and out. Blue Mountain put together a drive deep in Cardinal territory before Josh Leininger had his first of two interceptions in the game. After a 35-yard pass play from Leininger to Dalton Geesey, Brody Robinson took a handoff up the middle and took it into the endzone for a 33- yard touchdown to put the Cards up 7-0. Blue Mountain responded with a drive capped off by Eman Parker’s five-yard touchdown run. The extra point was missed, making the score 7-6. The Eagles were without four starters due to a mix of injury and disciplinary reasons.
In the second quarter Leininger connected with Shea Morgan for a 35-yard touchdown. Morgan topped off the scoring by kicking the extra point up and through. Again, the Eagles responded with a Bryce Hensley touchdown. Jack Dean fired a pass to Hensley and he ran down the sideline, sidestepped inside, and outran a defender into the north endzone for a 51-yard touchdown. The two point conversion attempt was no good, keeping the Cardinals in the lead 14-12.
The Eagles got the ball back and drove to the Pine Grove 20 yard line before a key fumble was recovered by Pine Grove’s Nick Wolff on the 8 yard line. With 2 minutes to go in the half Pine Grove put together a huge drive, fueled by two big plays from Leininger, to take a 20-12 lead into half. Leininger scrambled multiple times out of bounds for first downs during the drive. The first big play occurred when Leininger floated a ball to the Blue Mountain 40 yard line and Dalton Geesey out jumped multiple Eagle defenders to secure a catch. The other was the last two plays of the half, when the Cards were lined up for a QB sneak on the one-yard line, but the snap was fumbled back to the five. With no timeouts and time winding down below five seconds, Leininger took the snap, rolled right and threw across his body to Shea Morgan in the endzone for a touchdown as time expired.
The second half of the game was full of defense. Neither team scored in the second half as both teams traded punts back and forth multiple times. The Eagles had a final drive to attempt to score, but Josh Leininger had his second interception of the ballgame which sealed the victory for the Cardinals. Both teams’ records moved to 1-3. Blue Mountain hosts Tamaqua this Friday while Pine Grove hosts Pottsville.
