Expand<\/a><\/p>\nDALLAS TWP. \u2014 Unbeaten Dallas\u2019 biggest challenge entering Week 6 of the high school football season may not necessarily have been its opponent or grinding its way to its sixth straight win.<\/p>\n
Complacency? Perhaps for another team.<\/p>\n
But for these Mountaineers?<\/p>\n
Certainly not Friday.<\/p>\n
Facing an injury-depleted, one-win Hazleton Area team on Homecoming at Mountaineer Stadium, Dallas scored early and often and in nearly every conceivable way in a 56-0 nonconference victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set the standard by our standard,\u201d Dallas head coach Rich Mannello said. \u201cIf you watch us practice, you\u2019d see that everyday. \u2026 We do a lot of best-against-best, 11-on-11 stuff, so our guys are always ready to compete no matter who the opponent is or what situation we\u2019re facing. It\u2019s our standard and our kids know our standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mountaineers built a 42-0 lead by halftime, ensuring the game would be played under the PIAA\u2019s mercy rule and its running clock for the entire second half.<\/p>\n
Dallas scored twice on special teams: the first on Trevor Slavinski\u2019s 5-yard return of Bobby Gallagher\u2019s blocked punt and the second on Tyce Mason\u2019s 50-yard punt return.<\/p>\n
The Mountaineers\u2019 special teams also swallowed up Hazleton Area punter Derek Radzwich before he could get his initial boot of the night off, setting up Dallas in point-blank range for their first touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids are brought up on the techniques and schematics of special teams all year long,\u201d Mannello said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a history of going into the state tournament and winning some games that people thought we\u2019d never have a chance to win because of our special teams. When you do that, our younger guys see that and they get to know, \u2018Hey, this stuff works.\u2019 The buy-in is not so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
On offense, Hunter Pitcavage zigged and zagged 11 yards for a touchdown and Marc Saracinj later carried twice for scores, one time from 3 yards and another from 21, the latter on the first play from scrimmage in the second half before Mannello turned the game over his reserves.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Talan Geskey also got into the act, dumping off a 7-yard TD pass to fullback Owen Oldt and later connecting with Mason on a 12-yard touchdown toss.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Dallas kept the Cougars (1-5) on their side of the field for the entire game, holding them to minus yards of total offense and five first downs. Snap issues led to Hazleton Area losing a total of 137 yards. In all, the Cougars put the ball on the ground 12 times, relinquishing possession on four of their fumbles.<\/p>\n
Cole Hampel capped Dallas\u2019 scoring when he fell on a botched Cougars snap in the end zone in a fitting way for the visitors\u2019 night to end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just played an ugly game,\u201d said Hazleton Area head coach Scott Sacco, whose team was without at least 10 players, including several starters, because of injuries. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t do anything. Anything and everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we\u2019re down as many guys as we\u2019re down, we should still be able to move the ball a little bit and do the fundamental things like handling snaps,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s easy stuff that we\u2019ve got to be able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Gallagher\u2019s tackle on Radzwich in punt formation led to Pitcavage\u2019s touchdown, his blocked punt and Slavinski\u2019s short touchdown return made it 14-0 by the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
The snake-bitten Cougars actually went for it on fourth-and-4 from their own 26 on their next possession, but they had to fall on a poor snap at the 12. Saracinaj took it in from the 3 three plays later. Brandon Miller kicked the extra point as his team\u2019s lead ballooned to three scores with still 11:19 left before halftime.<\/p>\n
Geskey\u2019s 49-yard bomb to Mason set up the quarterback\u2019s 7-yard touchdown flare to Oldt. Moments later, Geskey and Mason teamed up on a 12-yard scoring pass that came on fourth down.<\/p>\n
After the Cougars again went three and out, Mason fielded a Radzwich punt, found an opening along the right sideline and sped 50 yards for his second touchdown in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur special teams are a killer\u2026.Coach Mannello is big on that,\u201d Mason said. \u201cWe\u2019re able to move to ball however want on offense. Our defense is a killer, too. Either way, you\u2019re not stopping us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a couple misleading statistics, Dallas had 132 yards of total offense and moved the chains only six times all night. Of course, having an average starting field position at the Hazleton Area 21 on their seven offensive possessions meant the Mountaineers didn\u2019t have to go too far to reach the end zone. And when Dallas had its \u201cworst\u201d starting field position at the Cougars 44, Geskey and Mason quickly hooked up on a 49-yard pass to the Hazleton Area 7.<\/p>\n
It was that kind of night.<\/p>\n
For both teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas\u2019 Tyce Mason, left, reacts after returning a punt for a touchdown against Hazleton Area at Mountaineer Stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9014,102,104,103,2291,7630,7631,9015,154],"class_list":["post-455199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-carbon-county","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-luzerne-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-schuylkill-county","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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