ELLIOTTSBURG >> Holding a 21-6 lead with less than a minute before halftime, West Perry’s football team looked poised to keep its undefeated season going.
But momentum took a huge swing with just one play.
With 44 seconds left in the second quarter, Shippensburg intercepted an attempted double pass and ran it for a touchdown and went on to score 28 unanswered points for a 34-21 Mid Penn Colonial Division win.
“It was the biggest play of the game,” Ship’s Colton Musser said. “We had all the momentum from that point on.”
Backed up and facing a 3rd & 3 from their own 11-yard line, the Mustangs (6-1, 2-1 Mid Penn Colonial Division) called for a double pass. Quarterback Kenyon Johnson flung the ball wide right to Jake Fadness, but as he caught it, the Ship defense was all over him. He got the throw off right before he was sacked, but Musser caught the ball just before it hit the ground and ran it into the endzone to send Ship into halftime trailing 21-12. Musser also recovered a fumble and had a sack.
Musser said, “I knew Ethan (Stouffer) had him in the endzone, and I read the play the whole way. I was covering the receiver, I saw him go to throw the ball, and he just threw it right to me.”
Ship coach Eric Foust said, “Colton is a very good football player. And maybe the best thing he did tonight was his work on the offensive line.”
On the first offensive play of the third quarter, Shippensburg (6-1, 3-1 MPC) turned the ball over on a fumble, but the Greyhounds blocked a West Perry Field goal on the next drive and followed with a 14-play, 80-yard drive to close the gap to 21-19.
“I knew we had to weather the storm early, and we could wear them down late,” Foust said. “Our offensive line was the difference in this game. We only ran about three different plays all night, but we executed and blocked well.”
Ship then forced West Perry into its only punt of the night. Adam Houser returned the punt for a big gain, and a personal foul call on the Mustangs gave Ship the ball at the 14. Houser later punched it in from three yards to give the Hounds a 27-21 lead and scored his last touchdown of the night from eight yards out with six minutes left to seal the win. Houser’s longest rush of the night was just 18 yards, but he finished with 31 carries for 179 yards and three scores. Jacob Loy added 16 carries for 68 yards.
Houser said, “The coaches kept saying that we don’t need the big play. If we just keep getting six and seven yards at a time, we can wear them down. The offensive line gave us some huge holes, and we just kept grinding away.”
Shippensburg attempted just six passes for a total of three yards, but it ran 49 times for 257 yards and wore out the Mustang defense down the stretch.
“We believed we could do this for four quarters, and we didn’t think they could,” Foust said. “We wore them out with our offensive line. That was our gameplan.”
West Perry didn’t have much trouble moving the ball on offense to start the game and scored on each of its first three possessions. Johnson was 5 of 6 for 63 yards in the first half with another 27 on the ground, and Terrance Quaker ran nine times for 96 yards, including a 44-yard rushing score with 5:32 left in the first half to make it 21-6. But the Mustangs committed several costly penalties and lost a fumble in the second half.
“We just didn’t execute in the second half,” West Perry coach Robert Boden said. “We had too many dumb penalties and turnovers. Our first three possessions we just moved the ball and had no penalties, but we couldn’t maintain that in the second half.”
For the Mustangs, Johnson finished 10 of 16 for 112 yards and added nine carries for 26 yards. Quaker had 15 carries for 133 yards, and Cade Sutch caught four balls for 53 yards.
SHIPPENSBURG 34, WEST PERRY 21
Shippensburg 0 – 12 – 7 – 15 — 34
West Perry 14 – 7 – 0 – 0 — 21
First Quarter
WP — Tad Ziegler 3 run (Zach Quaker kick), 6:02
WP — Jake Fadness 2 run (Quaker kick), 1:18
Second Quarter
S — Jacob Loy 1 run (Kick failed), 7:40
WP — Terrance Quaker 44 run (Zach Quaker kick), 5:32
S — Colton Musser 4 interception return (2-point try failed), 0:44
Third Quarter
S — Houser 7 run (Dalton Foore kick), 0:41
Fourth Quarter
S — Houser 3 run (Zack Manning run), 10:13
S — Houser 8 run (Foore kick), 6:02
TEAM STATISTICS
First Downs: S 17; WP 14. Rushes-yards: S 49-257; WP 32-183. Passing: S 2-6-0; WP 10-17-2. Passing Yards: S 3; WP 112. Penalties-yards: S 6-56; WP 4-49. Punts-yards: S 2-38; WP 1-33. Fumbles-lost: S 1-1; SP 1-1.
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing: Shippensburg, Houser 31-179, Loy 16-68, Manning 2-10; West Perry, Quaker 15-133, Johnson 9-26, Fadness 7-22, Ziegler 1-2.
Passing: Shippensburg, Manning 2-6-0, 3 yards; West Perry, Kenyon Johnson 10-16-1, 112 yards, Fadness 0-1-1, 0 yards.
Receiving: Shippensburg, Isaiah Houser 1-2, Nick Gustafson 1-1; West Perry, Cade Sutch 4-53, Quaker 4-46, Luke Shaffer 1-5, Preston Weber 1-8.