TimesLeader.com

August 30
Hazleton’s OT win snaps Abington hex

By Paul Sokoloski psokoloski@timesleader.com
Times Leader Sports Columnist

HAZLETON – One way or another, Matt Drumheller was determined to elude another stinging defeat at the hands of Abington Heights.

And when leaping over piles of defensive players and diving head-first to extend drives wasn’t enough, well, Drumheller just put his head down and smashed the Comet curse to bits.

Drumheller’s second effort on an overtime conversion run took him across the goal line Friday, giving Hazleton Area a dramatic 18-17 victory over Abington Heights in their season opener at Harman Geist Memorial Field.

“This team wanted it so bad,” Drumheller said, “that I knew I couldn’t let them down.”

He didn’t.

Darting left and right on off-tackle quarterback draws, Drumheller rushed 10 times for 74 yards on Hazleton Area’s final march of regulation, taking the Cougars from their own 16-yard line to the Abington Heights 6-yard line. That set up Jonathan Nahay’s 25-yard, game-tying field goal with 58 seconds left in regulation that sent the team’s into overtime tied 10-10.

Abington Heights struck first, taking a 17-10 lead on Paul Gallagher’s 5-yard touchdown run and Charlie Armetta’s ensuing extra point kick while threatening to take down Hazleton Area for a fifth straight year.

But Hazleton Area refused to watch it happen on its home turf.

Nahay plowed across the goal line on a four-yard scoring run, then Cougars coach Rocco Petrone made a call from the gut by allowing his troops to try a two-point conversion rather than extend the overtime with an extra point kick.

“That’s why I had to call time out,” said Petrone, describing how he wrestled with the decision. “Twenty-five seconds is nowhere near enough time to make a decision like that.”

It turns out his players made it for him.

“They decided they wanted to go for two,” Petrone said. “You look in a players’ eyes to know when they can get the job done.

“I couldn’t say no.”

Drumheller made the move pay off.

Stuck hard at the goal line on a quarterback sneak, Drumheller kept his feet, bounced off, and slithered into the end zone for the points that put that dastardly losing streak against the Comets to rest.

“All week,” Drumheller said, “all we read was we can’t beat Abington. Well, now we did.”

Drumheller spent his first night as a high school starting quarterback ensuring it.

He fired a 52-yard touchdown bomb to Chad Nicholas to give Hazleton Area a 7-3 lead in the first quarter and finished with a game-high 93 rushing yards.

The bulk of that groundwork came on Hazleton Area’s game-tying drive in the fourth quarter, when Drumheller stepped up at crunch time.

His fourth-down sneak for a yard kept the drive going deep in Hazleton Area territory, and later on, he leaped over two defenders just to pick up three yards. Drumheller followed that athletic move by diving head-first to pick up a first down with a four-yard gain to the Abington Heights 8-yard line.

“We just wanted to win so bad,” Drumheller said.