Mifflin County wins second in a row; tops Big Springs

By rscaife
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Updated: September 29, 2018

By BRIAN CARSON

NEWVILLE – Mifflin County football coach Scot Sechler discovered his squad’s formula for success and now he’s milking it for all it’s worth.

The Huskies live and die by a ground and pound rushing attack and an aggressive, hard-nosed defense. Both were on display Friday night in a 18-0 blanking of Big Spring in a Mid-Penn Colonial contest Friday evening at Bulldog Stadium.

Mifflin County (2-4, 2-1) rushed for 225 yards and two touchdowns while the Husky defense limited the Bulldogs (2-4, 0-2) to 215 total yards with only 35 yards coming on the ground. The win was the second in a row for the Huskies, while Big Spring dropped its fourth straight after a 2-0 start.

“We are really good at shutting down the run right now. Our plan was to get after their quarterback (Tim Siwy) and make him throw the ball a little sooner than he was comfortable doing,” Sechler said. “I’m very proud of this group. Defensively, we were amazing tonight. We were physical and we controlled the clock.”

Even without the services of RB/LB Trey Kibe, out with a sprained AC joint, Gage Schaeffer ran for 89 yards and a touchdown, while fullback Nathan Poche collected 77 yards on only nine carries. New to the rushing game was Brock Copouillez, who ran for 33 yards on six carries from his fullback spot.

“The running game is what our offense is predicated on. When we have the running game going, we are tough to stop,” Sechler said.

Mifflin County got on the board with 8:33 left in the second quarter when quarterback Noah Wright capped an 87-yard drive, going in from a yard out to make it 6-0. Poche had the key play of the drive with a 53-yard run.

The Huskies marched on another long drive, chewing up over six minutes of clock before Schaeffer punched it in with a 13-yard run around the right end for the score to make it 12-0 with 4:02 left in the third.

Mifflin County collected its final score of the night when Charles Duncan, who also had an interception, found himself wide open down the right sideline and Wright hit him for a 33-yard touchdown, giving the Huskies the 18-0 lead with 7:39 to go in regulation.

The Husky defense took over from there and did what it did all night – stifle the Bulldogs. Mifflin County picked up three sacks on and Taytdum Fortson finished with 10 tackles to lead the team.

Not all was perfect for Mifflin County. Two turnovers and some lackluster play on special teams are things Sechler wants to clean up before next week.

“We tried to shoot ourselves in the foot a few times. I was a little nervous about this being a trap game after the really big win we had last week,” Sechler said. “We’ve got to be better. We were sloppy tonight. We’re going to clean up the errors because we have a good team coming at us next week.”

Mifflin County hosts Waynesboro in Mid-Penn Colonial action on Friday, October