HAZLETON \u2014 About the only part of Abington Heights\u2019 game that might need work ahead of the District 2 Class 5A football playoffs is the punt unit.<\/p>\n
All other facets seem to be in fine working order.<\/p>\n
The Comets didn\u2019t attempt a punt in their final Friday night, scoring all seven times they had the ball in a 44-14 thumping of host Hazleton Area.<\/p>\n
The Comets\u2019 only fourth-down play all night was a successful field goal.<\/p>\n
Quarterback and Auburn University baseball commit Nick Bradley completed 9 of 11 passes for 149 and touchdowns to three receivers; Jayden Anglin rushed for 122 yards and a score; and Anthony Severs added TD runs of 18 and 20 yards on his first two carries to help Abington Heights leapfrog Pittston Area for the top seed in the district tournament.<\/p>\n
The Comets (8-2) forced Hazleton Area into three-and-outs on its opening four possessions, creating short fields for their efficient, balanced offense to do whatever it wanted in racking up a 27-0 lead by early in the second quarter and invoking the PIAA\u2019s mercy rule and its running clock for the entire fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to come here and execute in all three phases of the game \u2026 and play complementary football,\u201d Comets head coach Joe Repshis said. \u201cI thought we executed well, but there are things we\u2019re going to continue to get better at. We\u2019ll celebrate this one tonight, but we\u2019ll get back to work as soon as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan Gennaro\u2019s 43 yard return on the opening kickoff gave the Cougars (1-9) excellent field position, but they failed to move the chains and a 12-yard punt flipped the field in the Comets\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n
Taking over their 47, the Comets needed only six plays to reach the end zone. Anglin carried four times for 37 yards in the drive, including the final 15 after broke two tackles in the backfield. Jack Hartshorn\u00a0 booted the first of his five extra points to give Abington Heights a 7-0 lead not even five minutes into the contest.<\/p>\n
Moments later, another short Hazleton Area punt and a personal foul penalty on the Cougars set Abington Heights up just outside the red zone. Anglin took a pitch 12 yards to get the Comets even closer. From there, Bradley threw a seven-yard TD strike to Evan Keiper to make it,13-0.<\/p>\n
The pattern continued as he first quarter wound down: a shanked Hazleton Area punt, offensive balance by Abington Heights, an Anglin burst for double-digits yards (14) and Bradley finishing a drive with a scoring toss, this one for 29 yards to Noah Kayal.<\/p>\n
Anglin\u2019s nimble feet, Bradley\u2019s strong right arm and Gavin Anders\u2019 sure hands continued to doom Hazleton Area into the second quarter. Bradley connected with Anders \u2014 his favorite receiver \u2014 on passes of 11 and 31 yards to ignite their team\u2019s fourth scoring march, leading to their 8-yard scoring hookup and 27-0 lead for the visitors.<\/p>\n
The Cougars\u2019 offense finally showed signs of life on their ensuing possession. Sophomore Xavier Heck ran for his team\u2019s initial first down and JJ Lantigua completed a 12-yard sideline pass to Gennaro and then a short shovel pass to Gennaro that moved the ball to the Comet 29. Two plays later, however, Anglin\u2019s interception at the 19 stalled the drive.<\/p>\n
The Comets made Hazleton Area pay for its first turnover of the game, even though they had to go 81 yards for another score.<\/p>\n
Bradley dropped off a flare pass to Anglin that the speedy back turned into a 22 yard pickup and Anglin added a 16-yard run to move the ball to the Cougars\u2019 side of the field. Bradley followed with a 23-yard pass to Anders, before Severs took a draw play 18 yards for a touchdown with less than minute left before halftime.<\/p>\n
That was plenty of time for the Cougars to get on the scoreboard. Lantigua\u2019s first down pass hit Jose Lopez in stride for a 56-yard gain to the Abington Heights 19. After a Lantigua-to-Connor Bacon pass got Hazleton Area another first down, a sack pushed the Cougars back to the 11 with the clock winding down in the first half.<\/p>\n
Sacco called his final timeout of the half ahead of Lantigua\u2019s lob toward Lopez in the end zone. The high jump standout leaped over a Comet defender for the catch and the score. Gianni Turse\u2019s point-after made it 34-7 at halftime.<\/p>\n
Severs\u2019 20-yard TD romp capped the Comets\u2019 first offensive series of the second half and Keiper\u2019s interception led to Hartshorn\u2019s 25-yard field goal toward the end of the third quarter, which is when Repshis started to empty his bench.<\/p>\n
Gennaro\u2019s spinning 43-yard run on a reverse and later his 20-yard pass reception set up his 1-yard TD run midway through the final period.<\/p>\n
Despite having just one win during the regular season, Hazleton Area will head to the District 2\/4 Class 6A playoffs as the No. 4 seed. The Cougars will travel to top-seeded Wilkes-Barre Area, which lost to Williamsport, 28-21, on Friday.<\/p>\n
Abington Heights, meanwhile, will face another one-win team in Wyoming Valley West in the Class 5A semifinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited,\u201d Repshis said.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 25, 2025 at 2:22 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAZLETON \u2014 About the only part of Abington Heights\u2019 game that might need work ahead of the District…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5523,305,201,803,28,231,178,180,179,726,729],"class_list":{"0":"post-14519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-carbon-county","9":"tag-high-school-sports","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-luzerne-county","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-schuylkill-county","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}