TodayA true test: It’s game time for CV
Neither CV nor Wilson has had a challenge in the postseason.
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Cumberland Valley’s Mike Frenette (24), who leads the area with 1,643 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns, will face Wilson tonight in the D3-AAAA final.
It was an ugly way to lose a football game, there’s no disputing that.
For the better part of three hours last November, Wilson dominated Harrisburg in the semifinal round of the District 3-6 Class AAAA playoffs. The Bulldogs, who came in as the No. 12 seed, pushed the top-seeded and state-ranked Cougars to the brink of elimination before their kicking game eventually did them in.
Harrisburg escaped with a 17-14 overtime victory as Wilson missed four field goals, including one in the extra session, and for the second straight year finished one step shy of playing for a district title.
“We used that mostly as an offseason motivator,” said third-year Wilson coach Doug Dahms, whose team meets Cumberland Valley at Hersheypark Stadium on Saturday for the 3-AAAA championship at 6 p.m. “We totally dominated Harrisburg but couldn’t put points on the board.”
That hasn’t been a problem this fall.
Behind senior tailback Zacc Groff and his 1,488 rushing yards, the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section I champion averaged 40.3 points per game and eclipsed the 40-point mark in eight of its 13 games. Wilson (13-0) has outscored its last two playoff opponents, 94-6.
“They scatter the ball around,” CV coach Tim Rimpfel said. “They keep it pretty balanced. In some ways they’re very similar to us.”
Dahms mimicked Rimpfel’s statement about the teams being similar despite running different schemes.
Wilson employs a multiple set offense while CV relies on the Wing-T. Both defenses run a 4-4.
“We’re two very similar squads,” Dahms said. “Both teams are well-coached, don’t make a lot of mistakes and don’t use too much flash and dash. We run different packages but we’re mirror images in philosophy.”
The pistol formation, something not seen a lot in high school football, is a something the Eagles (12-1) will see a fair amount of Saturday. In the set, senior quarterback Steve Huber is 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage, with his fullback, Dylan Stopper, and Groff, the tailback, lined up in various positions.
“It’s really hard for (defenses) to predicate which way we’re going because we put the fullback on either side (of the quarterback) and he could come back across on either side,” Dahms said. “Sometimes the tailback gets lost in the shuffle.”
The offense has obviously held its own this year but it’s the defense that normally grabs the headlines.
The attention started during that playoff run last year when the team held Altoona to six points, York William Penn to 12 and Harrisburg to 17. All three games were on the road.
This year, Wilson’s first-team defense has allowed one touchdown since Manheim Central scored two on them Sept. 5 in a 20-15 Bulldogs win. Wilson hasn’t trailed since Reading recovered a fumble in the end zone in the first quarter Oct. 10.
Opponents average 154.1 yards and 7.0 points against Wilson’s defense.
“They move people around and make it difficult to get a look sometimes,” Rimfpel said. “They have excellent personnel, starting at linebacker. Both the inside linebackers and outside are all big and the monsters (outside linebackers) are quick.
“They send people all over with stunts and things. Obviously we’re working on our stunting package. We’ll have to still get off the ball quick and not let them slow us down. Let’s face it, Bishop McDevitt is very good and (Wilson) handled McDevitt.”
In the semifinals, the Bulldogs held McDevitt to one first down in the first half and contained an explosive Crusaders offense in a 48-6 rout.
This week, the challenge is to stop the three-headed CV rushing monster that includes senior running back Mike Frenette, junior fullback Travis Friend and senior quarterback Nate Rhodes. Kevin Snyder, a sophomore and the star of the comeback against Central Dauphin, has shown glimpses of greatness.
But the key for Wilson is to stop Frenette, who leads the area with 1,643 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns while also being weary of the Eagles’ pass game.
“I don’t know if Frenette or (Friend) will be the bigger problem to tell you the truth,” Dahms said. “We’ve been rather successful stopping the run. We’ll try and keep them from getting big runs and see what we can do.”
To crack the vaunted defense and deliver CV its first District 3-AAAA title since 2003, Rimpfel knows his team will need to be balanced to prevent Wilson from loading the box and stuffing the run.
When Governor Mifflin tried that in the semifinals last week, Rhodes hit senior tight end Matt Lengel for a 48-yard touchdown and a 10-0, first-quarter lead.
That kept the Mustangs honest the rest of the night in a 44-0 loss.
“You have to be as balanced as possible,” Rimpfel said. “You can’t just abandon the run and throw. If we throw 30 times a game we’re in trouble and that’s against any team. We have to be balanced.
“At this point in the season you don’t change much offensively or defensively. You go with what you know.”
