Montoursville Overpowers Wellsboro in 58-0 Season Opener
By: Ed Weaver | NTL Sports | August 23, 2025 | Photo courtesy Brett Crossley
Montoursville - Wellsboro opened their 2025 campaign on the road, struggling on both sides of the ball in a 58-0 loss to the Warriors Friday.
The Warriors put together a balanced offensive attack in the first half as they accumulated 291 yards, 145 through the air and 146 on the ground, en route to scoring 31 points.
"It's something we're looking to do this season, be a little more balanced," Montoursville head coach Joe Hanna said. "Obviously we've been a little run-heavy the last couple of years. This year we have a lot of athletes on the outside at receiver and our quarterback is starting to get their, plus a good run game helps the pass game when defenses overload the box."
Montoursville wasted little time as they took the opening kickoff and put together a four-play drive. Two passes from Elijah Eck moved the Warriors into Hornet territory. A 5-yard run by Hayden Harvey then led to a 22-yard pass from Eck Brayden Burkett to put the Warriors up 7-0 just 51 seconds into the game. Montoursville's defense caused a turnover that led to a sustained drive, culminating in a 28-yard Adam Shearer field goal to put the Warriors up 10-0.
The Warriors added three more scores to close out the half. Burkett caught his second touchdown of the evening, this one from 33 yards away, with 10:06 remaining before producing back-to-back rushing touchdowns. Midway through the quarter Christian Banks bulldozed his way into the end zone from two yards out, then with 15 seconds left in the half, Hayden Harvey pushed his way in from 2 yards out.
Montoursville picked up in the third where they left off at halftime, again forcing a Wellsboro turnover. After the Hornets picked up their largest play of the game at that point, a 30-yard pass from sophomore Griffin Morral to sophomore Kody Enck (Wellsboro was held to just 29 yards of offense in the first half), Kane Moore intercepted Morral and returned it for a 70-yard score, increasing their lead to 38-0 and enacting the Mercy Rule. Wellsboro's ensuing drive went three-and-out and after a punt, Banks broke off a 60-yard run on the fourth play of the drive, making it 45-0.
The Warriors' final two fourth quarter scores came on a Mason Lapinski 21-yard run with 9:50 remaining and a Logan Reed 32-yard jaunt with 2:46 left to play.
"Defense was swarming and any time your opponent doesn't score you're going to win," continued Hanna. "Wellsboro has some play makers on the field and is going to be fine," he added. "We were pretty good in space and they couldn't run the ball and made them one-dimensional."
The Warriors' defense held Wellsboro's offense to just 79 yards, while their offense amassed 470 yards.
Eck finished 7-for-11 for 145 yards and two scores through the air. Burkett caught two passes for 55 yards and a pair of scores while Moore hauled in three passes for 47 yards. Kingston Fisher (24) and Jay Houseknecht (19) also caught passes.
Hanna also praised his sophomore signal caller.
"There's some things he has to correct but for his first start he did a wonderful job. To ask a sophomore to come out and run an offense like that, he's pretty successful. He puts a lot of time in in the film room and on the field, so I'm very proud of him."
Morral finished 5-for-13 through the air for 47 yards and also rushed 12 times for 14 yards. Enck carried the ball once for 18 yards and caught 2 passes for 41 yards. Freshman Derrick Blasz also completed 1-of-2 passes for 8 yards to sophomore Keegan VanZile. Junior Gideon Lawton caught one pass for 9 yards and junior Max Mascho caught 2 passes for 7 yards.
"They're a good team but I thought we could've put up more of a fight than we did," head coach Matt Hildebrand said. "We were a little banged up coming in, I think we're more banged up now, but we made a lot of mistakes and that didn't help us out. In the first half we were backed up on three of our possessions inside the five, we fumbled twice and had two personal fouls, so that doesn't set us up for success. We have nine more weeks and you can't let one loss define you. We'll get back in the film room on Monday and look to bounce back against Muncy Saturday."
Ed Weaver is the owner of Circle W Sports in Wellsboro, PA, is the Sports Director for The Home Page Network and the creator of WellsboroAthletics.com and WellsboroFootball.com. You can follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook.
