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Bellefonte football shut out by Bishop Guilfoyle on road, 35-0

By KENNY VARNER 5 min read

ALTOONA – On a dark and rainy Saturday night at Mansion Park, the Bellefonte football team took the trip up to play defending State Champion Bishop Guilfoyle. To be the best, you've got to play the best.

Over the first three games of the season Bellefonte has done just that and Saturday night was no exception as the young and up-and-coming Raiders went head-to-head against a defending State champion in the Mauraders.

After beating a tough Forest Hills team by seven a week ago, Bellefonte was back to try their hand against the Mauraders. Despite an impressive opening drive, Bellefonte struggled against the tough Bishop Guilfoyle defense as the Mauraders that were too much for the spirited Red Raiders squad, winning 35-0.

On second down, Bellefonte went to the air when Alten Howell hooked up with Parker Jodon for a 19-yard reception moving the ball to their own 38. After a two-yard run by Bentlee Hall, the Raiders were back to the air as Howell once again found Jodon.

The Red Raiders got the ball down into Mauraders' territory when Howell found Landon Langille on a 25-yard reception, putting them at the Bishop Guilfoyle 27.

But the drive would fizzle as the Maurader defense held Bellefonte in check, giving the ball to their talented offense which was run by Justin Wheeler.

"We come out our first opening drive and move the ball well, and then we just kind of sputtered and didn’t make anything happen," said Bellefonte coach Tony Confer. "And a team like that, you gotta take advantage of things, get points on the board when you have an opportunity to. You know, that’s a really good football team and we didn’t play overall well."

Wheeler rushed for more than 100 yards on the ground and scored on a punt return and three touchdowns total. Before the Red Raiders defense had a chance to settle in Bishop Guilfoyle scored on its first play.

Wheeler called his own number and sped past the Bellefonte defenders for 62-yard TD run. With the Carter Boland kick, the Mauraders led with 7:59 left in the first.

Bishop Guilfoyle's defense forced the Bellefonte team a three-and-out. This time the Mauraders would continue its offensive attack on Bellefonte's line. This time it was Keegan Hewett that was able to muscle his way to a 14-yard TD downfield march and with the Boland kick it was 2:11. With time remaining Justin Wheeler 54-yard punt return (Boland kick), 0:02.

"We had a lot of missed tackles on defense. I think, they just overwhelmed us at times a little bit defensively," said Confer. "We have a lot of young kids out there. And, you know, trying to get young kids in a position to play tough hard football for four quarters is something we’re still in the process of brewing, and you know, offensively, we couldn’t execute anything tonight, other than that opening drive, and then we had one other drive, that we were able to move the ball a little bit, and almost got down into field goal position there at the end of the half. We know we gotta be better. "

Going into the second quarter, the Bellefonte defense was able to make a statement as they were able to keep the Marauders off the scoreboard.

The two teams would go into intermission with Bellefonte trailing 21-0.

Bellefonte continued to keep the Bishop Guilfoyle offensive attack in check for most of the third half. Again, it would be Wheeler that would cash in the touchdown as he ran it in from 1-yard out,

Rounding out the second half scoring was Keegan Hewitt who blazed his way to an a 15-yard TD run with 0:57 left in the third.

"We got to clean a lot of things up this week. You know, we have Clearfield coming up, which is always a tough battle for us, but, you know, I’m proud of the kids that they, I don’t feel that they quit," said Confer. And when you play a team like this, sometimes it’s easy to, you know, to quit early.

And I don’t think this group has that in them. You know, we just got to get back to the drawing board this week. We got to clean things up off it, so we got to clean some things up defensively and special teams. and get moving in the right direction again.

Bellefonte will be back on Friday when they play Clearfield.

BIshop Guilfoyle 35, Bellefonte 0

Bellefonte 0 0 0 0 -- 0

Bishop Guilfoyle 21 0 14 0 -- 35

First quarter

BG – Justin Wheeler 62-yards run (Carter Boland kick), 7:59.

BG – Keegan Hewett 14-yard TD (Boland kick), 2:11.

BG – Justin Wheeler 54-yard punt return (Boland kick), 0:02.

Third quarter

BG – Justin Wheeler 1-yard run (Boland kick), 1:20.

BG – Keegan Hewitt 15-yard TD run (Boland kick), 0:57.

TEAM STATISTICS

Be BG

First downs 6 10

Rushes-yards 31-18 33-209

Passing yards 51 19

C-A-I 4-15-1 2-6-0

Total yards 70 218

Fumbles-lost 2-1 3-2

Penalties-yards -- --

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING: Bellefonte, Alten Howell 4-(minus-11), Bentlee Hall 7-6, Asten Howell 4-19, Quinn Park 2-(minus-6), Ethan Speerstra 6-1, Jibril Jasseh 4-(minus-5), Keegan Rogers 2-11, Jacob Bowman 1-1, Canyon Dickey 1-2. Bishop Guilfoyle, Justin Wheeler 15-104, Keegan Hewitt 10-89, Evan Schimminger 2-2, Jack Gioiosa 3-12, Ben Himmelwright 3-2.

PASSING: Bellefonte, Alten Howell 4-15-1 51. Bishop Guilfoyle, Justin Wheeler 2-6-0 19

RECEIVING : Bellefonte, Parker Jodon 3-26, Landyn Langille 1-25. Bishop Guilfoyle, Connor Okonak 1-5, Jack Gioisa 1-14.

Starting at /week.