Powerful Seals take down Wildcat gridders, 49-14
BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP, PA – The Selinsgrove Seals football team Friday night showed why they’re among the top-ranked Class 4A football teams in the state of Pennsylvania. The Seals came to Malinak Stadium and put on a first half clinic on both sides of the ball, piling up a 49-0 lead midway through period two on the way to a 49-14 win over the injury-plagued Central Mountain Wildcats.
The veteran Seals team is now 6-0-1, the only blemish a week #3 21-21 tie with Jersey Shore, both teams with the same record and steamrolling to a likely District 4 Class AAAA title game in November.
Selinsgrove scored on its first seven positions, led by multi-sport standout Tucker Teats. The Seal running back only carried four times but accumulated 97 yards and four touchdowns, three of them rushing, the other the game’s first score, a 14-yard-pass from quarterback Mark Pastore. By halftime Pastore had completed five-of-seven passes for 148 yards; both Seal standouts did not see action in the second half as the game finished its final two quarters in the mercy rule.
The Seals swarming defense was equally impressive in the first half, the Wildcats kept in check on their first six possessions before finally scoring, the only early exception a 39-yard first quarter completion from quarterback Thomas Sprague to Dominic Longworth; that drive ended in Seal territory on a quarterback sack..
Selinsgrove led 28-0 after one and added another 21 in period two for the commanding lead. The Wildcats, who did not quit, were able to get on the scoreboard late in the second quarter on a picture-perfect Sprague-to-Connor Foltz 42-yard pass, the extra point try no good.
CM received the second half kickoff and moved 63 yards for their second touchdown, Rocco Serafini with a 31-yard burst for the score; he followed with a 2-point rushing conversion to set the score at 49-14. There was no further scoring as the second half was played in a steady rain, sending many of the Heritage Homecoming fans scurrying home.
Serafini finished his night with 100 yards rushing on 26 carries. Sprague finished 4-of-8 passing for 91 yards, Longworth catching two for 40 yards, Foltz one for 21 yards and Mack Saar one for nine yards.
The Wildcats were without six frontline players out with injuries. The loss was the team’s fourth in a row after a 2-1 start, now 2-5 overall.
The season won’t get any easier for the Wildcats. Rolling in to Malinak Stadium next Friday is Garden Spot (6-1) out of Lancaster County. The Spartans lost their first game of the season Friday night, falling to Twin Valley by a 35-34 score.
S 28 21 0 0 = 49
CM 0 6 8 0 = 14
