Peters Township’s defense blanked Moon in the second half, pushing the Indians to a 23-14 win Friday night at Tiger Stadium.
Peters Township trailed 14-7 going into the second half after back-to-back big plays for Moon.
Andrew Cross hit Jared Moyer on a 74-yard pass to tie it 7-7 and Nicholas Clemens ran in a 30-yard scoop-and-score after Moyer sacked Nolan DiLucia and jarred the ball loose.
Nonetheless, Nick McCullough took a punt to the house for 73 yards to tie it 14-14 in the third quarter.
On the next Peters Township possession, Nick Courie capped off an 84-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.
A safety in fourth gave the Indians a two-score cushion, leading to a much-needed conference win.
McCullough, who caught five passes for 48 yards, credited teammates for his punt return.
"I misjudged the length of that punt,” McCullough said about his game-tying play. "I had to run back and get it. I saw a bunch of red jerseys, but then I saw a wall of white shirts and had to run over there. (Great) blocking from my teammates. Mickey Vaccarello put his hands up before he could have blindside blocked a kid, so I’m thankful for him.”
The Peters defense was the story of the game. It shut down the Moon rushing attack, holding the tigers to minus-14 yards on the ground.
"Our defense is the same as last year,” McCullough said. "We have dogs on and off the field.”
DiLucia, who completed 15 of 22 passes for a 154 yards, said he and the defense changed their mentality in the second half.
"We were down, but you can’t come out thinking like that,” DiLucia said. "You have to come out like it’s 0-0. You have to come out and keep punching them in the mouth. They’re a hard-nosed football team, so we had to match that.”
Courie spearheaded the rushing attack for Peters, running for 72 yards on 17 carries and tallying two touchdowns.
Courie had the game’s opening score as well as the game-winning score.
"The first score, we run this elephant package, our goal line package,” Courie said. "I think it’s our best package. We always score doing it. It took us a couple tries, but once we got that first one, I was like, ‘Let’s go.’”
Courie added: "Moon came back a little bit. On the winning score, I had so much trust in our defense that once we scored that, we weren’t giving up any more.”
Despite the loss, Moon coach Ryan Linn liked what he saw from his defense.
"They played lights-out tonight,” Linn said. "That group of kids are really resilient. Our defensive staff does a great job and they prepare them well. The kids execute and play well. I wish our offense would have helped us out a little bit, but our defense was playoff caliber the last two weeks.”
Linn noticed the Peters Township linebacking corps of Vacarello, Reston Lehman and Lucas Shanafelt.
"They’ve been giving us fits for years,” Linn said. "TJ and those guys do a great job over there. … This may be their best linebacking corps they’ve had, and that says a lot because he’s had some very good ones.”
Peters notched the first score of a game on a three-play, 34-yard drive. DiLucia connected with Eli Prado for 31 yards to set the Indians up inside of the Moon 5-yard line.
Courie punched it in from a yard out and Anthony Maeillo hit the extra point, giving the Indians a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter.
Moon got a first down on a 49-yard pass from Andrew Cross to Jacob Warnagiris, moving to the Peters 30. It was their first first down.
Both teams tallied just one first down in the first quarter.
Despite the big play, the Tigers were turned over on downs.
Nonetheless, Moon forced a punt after a Bailey Simon sack.
After receiving good field position, the Indians were stuffed on fourth-and-2.
Despite the offensive struggles early on, Moon got on the scoreboard when Cross threw a bomb to Moyer for a 74-yard touchdown. Moyer caught the pass, fought off Darius McMillon on the coverage and ran it in for the score. Evan Senkevich hit the extra point, knotting it up at 7-7.
Things went south for the Indians before halftime. Moyer made things happen on defense on the edge, drilling DiLucia as he dropped back to pass, jarring the ball loose. Clemens took it to the house for a 30-yard fumble return, giving the Tigers a 14-7 lead at the end of the second.
The Indians tied it up on McCullough’s 73-yard punt return.
The Indians then forced a three-and-out. After a few screen passes getting the Indians into Moon territory, DiLucia found Jeremy Poletti for 34 yards, putting them at the Moon 30.
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The Tigers retook the lead 21-14 when Courie ran it in from 2 yards out.
The Indians got two more points on a safety after a personal foul in the end zone.
Moon was led by Cross, who completed 8 of 19 passes for 139 yards and a touchdown.
Peters bounced back after seeing its 17-game win streak snapped last week. DiLucia is happy the team regained momentum Friday.
"It’s a good feeling,” DiLucia said. "You’re kind of down all week coming off a loss. It’s never something you want to feel like, but once you get that win back, it feels good.”
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