Miscues doom Bulldogs in 50-7 loss to Allentown Central Catholic

Nov. 26—BELLEFONTE — It's hard to beat a team when you beat yourself.

The Meadville Bulldogs were flagged 13 times in Friday's 50-7 loss to Allentown Central Catholic in the state quarterfinal round.

Penalties have plagued the 'Dogs all season and the flags were too much to overcome at Bald Eagle High School.

"Here we are in the biggest game of the year and what are we doing but jumping offsides, false starting, holding and doing it all over again," Meadville head coach Ray Collins said. "Slow learners and guys that in the heat of battle did some undisciplined things and they did it week in and week out. You just knew if we didn't clean ourselves up that it would bite us and it bit us tonight."

Self-inflicted wounds hurt Meadville, but on the game's opening drive the Bulldogs were hard to stop.

Meadville drove 80 yards on 14 plays and took a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter. On a fourth-and-12, Gavin Longstreth connected with Khalon Simmons on a 14-yard touchdown pass.

Allentown Central Catholic drove 53 yards on seven plays on its first drive. Vikings senior running back Caiden Shaffer scored a 1-yard rushing touchdown to cap off the drive.

Shaffer scored again early in the second quarter to give his team a 14-7 lead — a lead the Vikings would not relinquish.

Meadville nearly tied the game on its next drive. Senior running back Brady Walker scored from 16 yards out, but the play was called back because of a holding penalty. The drive would end with a turnover on downs.

"They hustled down and scored but when they were up 14-7 — we were down there and plunged it in but got rung up on a holding penalty again," Collins said. "That would have been a big thing if we could have scored. It would have been huge because then it's 14-14."

After a defensive stop, Meadville turned the ball over on downs again with less than a minute to go in the half. Allentown Central Catholic answered with a one-play touchdown drive.

On the ensuing kickoff return Meadville attempted to flip the ball back to a different returner but fumbled in the process. The Vikings were set up on the 20 and Shaffer rushed in to give Allentown Central Catholic a 28-7 lead at halftime.

"The second quarter was just disastrous for us. The penalties, the miscue on the kick return, we just really played a very poor second quarter and that's what cost us the ball game," Collins said. "We never dug out from that again."

Allentown Central Catholic scored three touchdowns and a safety in the second half. The Bulldogs had no answer for the Vikings' offense.

Shaffer finished with 101 rushing yards and four touchdowns and Nathan Schultz ran for 134 yards. Tamlin Ferguson passed for 192 yards and Jareel Calhoun caught nine passes for 117 yards.

"They were big and they were athletic. The quarterback was really good and the receivers were good. They had two really good running backs," Collins said. "They kinda shredded us a little bit. With us not having an answer offensively we put a lot of pressure on our defense to keep us in the game and that's too much to ask."

Allentown Central Catholic will play Aliquippa next week in the Class 4A semifinal round.

For Meadville, the Bulldogs' season comes to an end.

"All good things come to an end. We fell apart in the second quarter and I knew we had a tough mountain to climb if we wanted to save our season and we couldn't dig out from it," Collins said. "The seniors fought and they fought the entire way. I thought they showed great leadership tonight."

Simmons ended the game with 21 carries and 92 rushing yards. Walker rushed for 52 yards on 14 attempts and Amarri Lewis tallied 18 yards.

The senior class put together back-to-back District 10 championships, region titles and trips to the state quarterfinal round.

"They just needed to get over that hump and get to the final four round. The seniors really gave a lot to this program and over the course of their four years worked really hard" Collins said. "I'm proud of them and we're going to miss them. I feel bad that it ended this way."

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Allentown Central Catholic 7 21 7 16 — 50

Meadville 7 0 0 0 — 7

First Quarter

M — Gavin Longstreth 14 yard pass to Khalon Simmons (Oliver Przepiora extra point).

A — Caiden Shaffer 1 yard run (Luke Myers extra point).

Second Quarter

A — Caiden Shaffer 30 yard run (XP).

A — Tamlin Ferguson 50 yard pass to Jareel Calhoun (XP).

A — Caiden Shaffer 20 yard run (XP).

Third Quarter

A — Caiden Shaffer 2 yard run (XP).

Fourth Quarter

A — Tamlin Ferguson 3 yard run (XP no good).

A — Safety

A — Nathan Schultz 12 yard run (XP).

Individual Statistics

RUSHING: M — Khalon Simmons 21-92, Brady Walker 14-52, Amarri Lewis 3-18, Nic Williams 2-24; A — Caiden Shaffer 11-101, Nathan Schultz 20-134, Tamlin Ferguson 2-9.

PASSING: M — Gavin Longstreth 1-2 14 yards 1 td, Khalon Simmons 1-9 3 yards; A — Tamlin Ferguson 14-21 192 yards 1 td, Kyle Fleshman 0-1.

RECEIVING: M — Khalon Simmons 1-14 1 td, Nic Williams 1-3; A — Jareel Calhoun 9-117 1 td, Griffin Patridge 5-75.

Alex Topor can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at atopor@meadvilletribune.com.