BERWICK \u2014 Berwick did everything it wanted to do on its first drive Friday night at Crispin Field.<\/p>\n
Almost.<\/p>\n
It was a 20-play drive that took more than 11 minutes off the clock, and it kept Dallas\u2019 high-powered offense on the sideline.\u00a0The only thing the drive didn\u2019t do was end in points.<\/p>\n
And after forcing a punt, Dallas didn\u2019t need 20 plays to make Berwick pay. It needed just one \u2014 an 80-yard Mark Saracinaj touchdown run.<\/p>\n
That swing in momentum gave the Mountaineers a two-touchdown lead and marked the final time Berwick was really in the game.<\/p>\n
he Mountaineers went on to a 35-7 victory that capped an undefeated regular season and earned them the Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 title. The win also vaulted Dallas over North Pocono for the No. 1 in the District 2 Class 4A playoff standings. Although the playoff pairing won\u2019t become official until Sunday, it is projected the Mountaineers will host No. 8 Hanover Area in the next week\u2019s quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Berwick finished the regular season 5-5 and fell to the No. 5 seed in the Class 4A tournament. It will likely travel to Wallenpaupack (6-4) next week in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of goals, and this was one of them,\u201d said Saracinaj, who ran for a career-high 179 yards and three touchdowns. \u201cWe still gotta get back in the weight room on Sunday because it\u2019s a new start for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first 13:02 of Friday\u2019s game at Crispin Field really couldn\u2019t have better represented who the two teams are.<\/p>\n
Dallas is a complete operation. It\u2019s offense can hurt you in a number of ways, like the 54-yard Brady McCann catch-and-run to open the scoring less than a minute in, or the Saracinaj 80-yard scoring jaunt.<\/p>\n
Berwick has worked through injuries with guts, guile and heart to post five wins against a brutal regular-season schedule, featuring six playoff teams. The Bulldogs\u00a0offense has played on a razor-thin line for much of the season since quarterback Brady Cleaver went down with an injury in Week 4. It must capitalize on the chances, especially against a defense the caliber of the Mountaineers, which allowed one score or fewer for the seventh time this season.<\/p>\n
That 20th snap of the game started with a fumble and ended with a 9-yard loss, forcing Berwick to punt. The five first downs on the drive were for naught, and with one play, Dallas made coming away with no points hurt even more, putting a two-score lead on the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou absolutely have to come away with points there,\u201d Berwick head coach CJ Curry said. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re doing well and then it\u2019s a negative play or a penalty and you get yourself behind the chains. It\u2019s been our Achilles heel all season. And then the next play they go 80 yards and it takes the air out of your sails a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
That run from Saracinaj set in motion a night for the Dallas running game, which saw it average better than 11 yards per carry. Saracinaj was the main catalyst, needing just three carries to eclipse the 100-yard make for the first time this season, and for the first time since he burst onto the scene as a freshman a year ago with a 156-yard performance Sept. 12 against Wilkes-Barre.<\/p>\n
The Mountaineers\u2019 offense has been so diverse and efficient this season that it hasn\u2019t needed Saracinaj or senior Hunter Pitcavage to be it\u2019s bell cow back. Neither of Dallas\u2019 top two running backs has 100 carries this season. Saracinaj and Pitcavage have combined for 1,217 yards this year at 7.7 yards per carry.<\/p>\n
Even on a night where Saracinaj set a career high in rushing yards, he needed just nine carries to do it thanks to an Earth-moving offensive line, the balance of a tight-rope walker, and the toughness of the 20-win wrestler that he is. And because neither he nor Pitcavage have had to carry the load offensively this year, they\u2019re both healthy and feeling fresh going into the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t look at the stats much, but we know they\u2019re pretty even,\u201d Dallas head coach Rich Mannello said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why they work so well with each other. They\u2019re completely different running styles. You can\u2019t appreciate what Mark does until you watch it on film. It\u2019s the wrestling in him. He\u2019s a tremendous wrestler and he runs the same way. You\u2019re not pulling him down with one guy. He can move sideways and not slow down, and that\u2019s hard for a lot of backs to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas ran just 35 plays Friday night, but 15 produced first downs, and five produced touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got killed on two plays. They ran GT counter and they ran buck sweep, and we had no answer for it,\u201d Curry said. \u201cI think it\u2019s things that are fixable, but we\u2019re going to see a Wallenpaupack team who has a senior running back with about 1,200 yards and a good quarterback who can sling it and run. So the road isn\u2019t going to get any easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERWICK \u2014 Berwick did everything it wanted to do on its first drive Friday night at Crispin Field.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,2291,154],"class_list":["post-482243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482243","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=482243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}