Pennsville wins annual rivalry game with Penns Grove 14-12, surviving a serious threat from the Red Devils in the fourth quarter
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE — No football team likes leaving their fortunes to chance, but you could say fate was on Pennsville’s side in its annual rivalry game with Penns Grove Friday night.
Some time during pregame warm-ups Pennsville seniors Danny Knight and Aiden Clark found a quarter around the 40-yard-line near the Penns Grove sideline. Just for fun, Clark suggested they flip the coin to determine who was going to win The Boot. Heads, the Eagles win; tails, they lose.
Somehow you got the feeling they were going to flip it until it came out correctly.
Anyway, they flipped it once and the usually sure-handed Knight tried to catch it, but the coin bounced out of his hands and landed on the ground tails. The pair took a do-over and this time it came up heads. They did it again for good measure (or maybe best 2-of-3) and it came up favorably heads again.
As fate would have it, the Eagles went on to win the game, 14-12, to retain the Wildman Willey Boot for the third straight year.
Actually, the Eagles (3-3) needed someone or something looking out for them. They needed to survive a furious Penns Grove rally in the fourth quarter to avoid another bitter last-minute loss. And in that rally, freshman Ayden Epstein stopped a potential game-tying two-point conversion and Grady Sanders shut down a reverse on fourth down that ended the Red Devils’ bid for the winning touchdown.
The game began in a steady rain that limited both teams’ offensive production in the first half. Penns Grove scored first when Terrell Thomas broke free for a 22-yard touchdown run, but the Red Devils missed on the two-point conversion. The Eagles took a 7-6 lead 92 seconds before halftime when Jake Layfield threw the first of his two touchdown passes to C.J. Johnson and Dante Cummings hit the extra point.
Beyond the tournament run, the Eagles held Penns Grove’s Thomas tandem to 138 combined yards rushing. Terrell Thomas had 61 yards on 12 carrier and Jaivon Thomas had 77 yards on 16 carries. The touchdown run was the Red Devils’ second-longest offensive play of the game.
The Eagles lost a shot at the go-ahead touchdown earlier in the quarter when Tristan Horner fumbled at the goal line. Despite the turnover, Horner rushed for a career-high 114 yards to give the Eagles their first 100-yard rusher of the season.
Layfield’s second touchdown pass to Johnson, a 44-yarder, early in the third quarter extended the Eagles lead to 14-6. It stayed that way until Jaivon Thomas picked off Layfield and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown. The Red Devils went for 2 looking to tie, but Epstein caught Thomas from behind to keep Pennsville in front.
Despite the two touchdown passes, it was an off night for Layfield. The Pennsville quarterback had thrown for more than 1150 yards and been intercepted just four times in 158 pass attempts in the first five games of the season, but on this rainy night he was just 6-for-12 for 94 yards and was intercepted four times.
The Red Devils had one last shot to get the game-winner and remain undefeated and took up almost all of the final 7:28 to complete the task. They had it on the Pennsville 12 with 2:08 left. Terrell Thomas was stopped for no gain on second down and then the Red Devils threw an incomplete pass along the sideline on third.
Penns Grove coach Damian Ware said his team had a good play lined up on the do-or-die fourth down, but they never got to call it because they were hit with a false start. On the restart they ran a reverse to Savior Allah that was supposed to turn into a pass, but Allah never got it off as Sanders met him head-on near the right sideline to kill the threat with one minute to go.
It wasn’t the first time in the game Sanders thwarted a Penns Grove threat. He recovered a fumble to end a drive in the first quarter and broke up a fourth-down pass inside the red zone in the final two minutes of the third quarter.
This story will be updated.
Pennsville 14, Penns Grove 12
| PG | PV | |
| 13 | 1st Downs | 13 |
| 40-163 | Rushing | 27-104 |
| 6-10-1 | Passes | 6-12-4 |
| 39 | Passing | 94 |
| 3-1 | Fum-Lost | 2-1 |
| 2-27.0 | Punts-Avg | 0-0 |
| 10-115 | Penalties | 8-60 |
| Penns Grove (4-1) | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6- | 12 |
| Pennsville (3-3) | 0 | 7 | 7 | 0- | 14 |
SCORING SUMMARY
PG-Terrell Thomas 22 run (pass failed), 7:30 1Q
PV-C.J. Johnson 14 pass from Jake Layfield (Dante Cummings kick), 1:32 2Q
PV-C.J. Johnson 44 pass from Jake Layfield (Dante Cummings kick), 10:03 3Q
PG-Jaivon Thomas 30 interception return (run failed), 10:59 4Q
