Wellsboro suffers Maghamez's revenge

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The Towanda Black Knights picked up their sixth consecutive win when they hosted the Wellsboro Green Hornets Friday, October 11.

The Black Knight defense frustrated the Wellsboro running game the entire night and held the visiting Northern Tier League team to only 105 yards on total offense.

Wellsboro only accumulated 10 yards rushing.

According to Wellsboro skipper Russ Manney, the game came down to the men in the trenches.

"Up front we were mismatched. Towanda had better athletes and were stronger," Manney said.

The saving grace for the Hornets was their abilities in the air which kept them in the thick of the game until Towanda shut the door with their second touchdown behind the rushing efforts of Ryan Maghamez.

Maghamez paced the Black Knight offense with 196 yards rushing and helped the Black Knights accumulate 395 yards on the ground on a soggy field.

Maghamez scored on a 29 yard run with 22 seconds remaining in the first quarter to give Towanda a 7-0 lead.

Towanda didn't score again until the final 20 seconds of the third quarter when Curry scrambled for a 69 yard touch down run to give Towanda a 14-0 lead.

Towanda signal caller Matt Curry was one of the main threats known by Wellsboro coming into the game.

"Our defense did well by going in and stopping Curry. They held him well. Except for his one 60 yard run, he didn't hurt us much," Manney said. "We played well at times and have improved on a lot and played disciplined football."

The Wellsboro defense had put in their time in preparation for the game against the 6-1 Black Knights in hopes of curtailing the scrambling threat of Curry.

"We put in a lot time on defense and I thought they played well enough to win," Manney said. "We had a chance to score right in the beginning with first-and-goal on nine-yard line but an interception gave them the chance to score."

Wellsboro's first offensive drive was swatted down with an interception, the first of two on the night for Wellsboro signal caller Will Osgood.

But the slick ball and less that optimum field conditions did not dampen a stellar night for the savvy quarterback who completed 4-of-17 passes for 97 yards.

"We were disciplined on offense but just couldn't make it," Manney said. "Will (Osgood) did very good despite being hit."

Leading the Hornets receiving core was Brandon Keck who pulled in one completion for 46 yards and a touchdown in the third quarter to narrow Towanda's lead to 14-6.

Also for Wellsboro, Seth Rockwell pulled in two receptions for 27 yards while Nate Compton had one reception for 24 yards which helped keep Wellsboro's offense from suffering.

"We drove down field in the second half and tried to kick a field goal but we didn't capitalize," Manney said. "When they scored in the second half, we came back to score and got back in the ball game."

"At that point I thought things were going all right but our offense couldn't sustain a drive and hold onto the ball," Manney added.

Towanda answered back following Wellsboro's only score of the game when Maghamez returned to the end zone with 6:00 remaining in the fourth quarter for the 20-6 lead.

Wellsboro will travel to Athens this Saturday, October 19 for a 1:00 p.m. contest.

"I hope to concentrate more on an offensive balanced attack. We won't work on any thing tricky. We'll just go back to the basics and hopefully execute better against Athens which has good size."

"We can beat them if we are ready to play and have the right attitude," he added.