CUMBERLAND — The first four trips to the line of scrimmage couldn’t have gone much better for one team, much worse for the other and show more of a sign of things to come.
After a 15-yard facemask penalty put Fort Hill in Southern territory on the Sentinels’ first play, Jabril Daniels scored the first of his two touchdowns on a 37-yard run.
A Southern run went for negative yards on its first play from scrimmage, and then the Rams had to burn a timeout just 1:29 into the game to avoid a delay of game penalty.
From there, it was all Fort Hill as the Sentinels extended their home win streak to 22 games with a 49-0 win over Southern.
“I thought it was a well-played game,” said Fort Hill head coach Zack Alkire. “We weren’t as perfect as we hoped we’d be, but it was a step in the right direction. We have a lot of positivity heading into next week.”
After forcing a punt, Carson Bender finished off the Sentinels’ second drive with a 1-yard TD run before hitting Harley Twigg on a 2-point pass.
After taking a 15-0 lead into the second, Fort Hill possessed the ball for 26 seconds in the opening three minutes and 42 seconds, and found the end zone three times.
Daniels scored his second touchdown on a 25-yard run, en route to finishing with 90 yards on 10 totes.
Bender picked off a pass two plays later and returned it 23 yards for a score.
Nick Willison made it 35-0 when he hauled in a 36-yard touchdown pass from Nash Cassell at the 8:18 mark.
Braelyn Younger, who had a game-high 100 rushing yards on just two carries, had the final touchdown of the opening half on a 72-yard scamper.
Gamil Daniels put the score at its final with a fourth-quarter 4-yard run with just over eight minutes to play. Gamil Daniels had a 48-yard punt return called back due to offsetting penalties after Southern’s opening drive.
Gamil Daniels was Fort Hill’s third-leading rusher with 69 yards on five tries.
Place kicker Bobby Brauer was 5 of 6 on extra points, his lone blemish coming after a penalty pushed the PAT back.
“I liked the way we came out,” Alkire said of his team’s performance. “I like that when we leave tonight, there’s a lot more positives than negatives. With a young team, that’s what we need.”
The Sentinels outgained Southern 364-68, piling up 317 yards on the ground while holding the Rams to minus-2 yards rushing.
“It is what it is, Fort Hill is Fort Hill,” said first-year Southern head coach Dave McLaughlin. “That’s a good football team, good program.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but we don’t cry victim at Southern High School. I’ve never been that way, never will be that way. We have six kids that return from last year’s combined (varsity and JV) football team on my varsity team, so it is like starting over. But the kids played hard from start to finish. Fort Hill has got so many weapons, so many things they can do. It just is what it is.”
The Rams rotated quarterbacks throughout, coming away inspired by the performance of Tripp Wolf under center, going 6 of 10 for 70 yards. Wolf had two big throws downfield that were hauled in by Joel Campbell, the first for 40 yards for Southern’s first first down at the 6:27 mark in the second quarter. The second big pass went for 31 yards from Wolf to Campbell on Southern’s opening drive of the second half on third-and-nine to get in Fort Hill territory.
“I thought he threw the ball pretty well,” McLaughlin said of Wolf. “We’ve just got so many inexperienced guys and so many things to figure out offensive line-wise. It was a short week, but we’re not using excuses. We’ve just got to get better in a lot of ways. We’ve improved in a lot of ways. We’ve just got a long way to go.”
Southern (1-2) returns home next Friday to host East Hardy, who is off to a 0-3 start and travels to Tygarts Valley this evening.
“We’re still figuring out blitz packages and things, communicating, things like that,” McLaughlin said of what his team will work on with the extended week. “East Hardy is a spread team so we’ve got to get straight on that. I know they have a good running back. We’ve just got to reload and get better for next week.”
Fort Hill (2-1) will look to extend its home winning streak to 23 next Friday when the Sentinels welcome likely-undefeated Hollidaysburg (Pennsylvania) to Greenway Avenue Stadium. The Golden Tigers (4-0) travel to winless Mifflinburg (0-4) tonight.
“Hollidaysburg has a great culture,” Alkire said. “Every time we go up there, it’s always awesome, they have a great atmosphere. They play a good brand of football, they play a physical brand of football. We’re going to really have to shore things up. We get a little more time to rest and prepare, so that’s the benefit of having a Thursday night game.”