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HAZLE TWP. — Don’t mess with the dancing bear.
He may just trample all over your party.
Like Friday night, when a kid with that nickname turned Hazleton Area’s plans haywire while rummaging through Harman-Geist Stadium.
Noah Taylor scored two touchdowns and made a game-changing strip sack in the second half, leading the Wilkes-Barre Area Wolfpack to a convincing 34-20 football victory over Hazleton Area.
“I call him a dancing bear,” Wolfpack coach Ciro Cinti said. “He looks like a dancing bear. But he gives his best.”
Taylor danced his way to touchdown bursts of 27 and 11 yards as a running back.
But it was in the defensive backfield where Taylor really turned into a bear.
Trailing by seven points in the third quarter, a blitzing Taylor not only got home for a quarterback sack, he dislodged the football to give the Wolfpack instant life.
Wilkes-Barre defensive lineman Vincent Beltran scooped it up and returned it 25 yards, and Wolfpack running back Corey Brown raced 10 yards into the end zone to tie the game on the very next play.
“We had a terrible first half, it was rough,” said Taylor, who added that the team dedicated the second half to Wilkes-Barre linebacker David Curry — who left with an injury in the first half and didn’t return for the final two quarters. “I just met him this year, he’s like a brother to me. After he got hurt, we got (ticked) off in the locker room.”
Something poked the bear.
Another sack ended Hazleton Area’s next drive, and Rafael McCoy returned a punt 20 yards, then caught a 14-yard strike from Kam Taylor to set up the go-ahead score.
Taylor didn’t waste much time with it, bursting 11 yards into the end zone to put the Wolfpack ahead, 27-20.
“Just gotta run mad,” Taylor said. “Run hard and mad, that’s my thinking.”
For a whole half, the jointure of players from Coughlin, GAR and Meyers were pretty much mad at themselves.
Taylor started the scoring with a 27-yard touchdown run, but Hazleton Area immediately answered on the ensuing offensive play when Kellen Wagner found Matthew Cusatis running all alone down the middle of the field for a 52-yard touchdown pass.
A lost fumble on the kickoff return gave the Cougars the ball right back, and Hazleton Area didn’t take long to jump on top. Wagner and Cusatis hooked up again on a 26-yard completion, setting up Kevin Meluskey’s 1-yard scoring run for a 12-6 Hazleton Area lead.
The first three extra points of the game were missed, but Wilkes-Barre Area hit one following Taylor’s 76-yard touchdown bomb to McCoy — who spun away from an attempted tackle to cover the final 15 yards as Wilkes-Barre took a 13-12 lead with less than two minutes into the second quarter.
It didn’t last long, though.
Lance Johnson broke off a 45-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter, and when McCoy’s apparent 63-yard touchdown catch was wiped out by a blocking penalty, the Cougars cruised into halftime with a 20-13 lead.
That’s when the Wolfpack went on the attack, as Beltran recorded two of Wilkes-Barre Area’s three second-half sacks and the Cougars didn’t cross midfield through the final two quarters.
“Our defense came out to play (after halftime) the way they should have played for four quarters,” Cinti said. “It was a great defensive half.”
It sent the Wolfpack to 3-2 — and over the .500 mark — as Wilkes-Barre Area heads to Dallas next week.
“It feels great,” Taylor said. “I played for GAR last season, we didn’t have a good year. I really wanted this combination of teams to come together. It really feels great.”
Wilkes-Barre Area 34, Hazleton Area 20
Wilkes-Barre Area“7`14`7 — 34
Hazleton Area`6`14`0`0 — 20
First quarter
WB — Noah Taylor 27 run (kick failed), 4:03
HAZ — Matthew Cusatis 52 pass from Kellen Warner (kick failed), 3:46
Second quarter
HAZ — Kevin Meluskey 1 run (kick failed), 10:42
WB — Rafael McCoy 74 pass from Kam Taylor (Michael Deutsch-Jones kick), 10:19
HAZ — Lance Johnson 45 run (Meluskey conversion pass from Warner), 2:04
Third quarter
WB —Corey Brown 10 run (Deutsch-Jones kick), 8:26
WB — Taylor 11 run (Deutsch-Jones kick), 5:31
Fourth quarter
WB — Malik Robinson 12 pass from Taylor (Deutsch-Jones kick), 8:19
Team statistics`WBA`HA
First downs`17`13
Rushes-yards`35-255`30-106
Passing yards`152`166
Total yards`407`272
Passing`7-14-2`10-18-0
Sacked-yards lost`1-4`3-23
Punts-avg.`2-46`5-30.8
Fumbles-lost`0-0`1-1
Penalties-yards`12-120`1-13
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — WB, Corey Brown 13-98, Noah Taylor 9-72, Kam Taylor 5-47, Talee Swinney 6-21, Rafael McCoy 1-17, Casmir Van Buren 1-0. HAZ, Lance Johnson 9-63, Kevin Meluskey 10-37, Matthew Cusatis 5-17, TEAM 1- (minus 1), Kellen Warner 6- (minus 10).
PASSING — WB, Swinney 3-9-2-38, K. Taylor 4-5-0-114. HAZ, Warner 10-18-0-166.
RECEIVING — WB, McCoy 5-136, Malik Robinson 1-12, Brown 1-4. HAZ, Cusatis 7-99, Johnson 2-60, Matt Fisher 1-7.
INTERCEPTIONS — HAZ, Fisher, 2-0.
MISSED FGs — None.