Wyomissing established the running game early and Scranton Prep’s established offensive leader was done for the day even earlier when the two unbeaten teams met Nov. 27 in a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 3A state football quarterfinal.
The District 3 champion Spartans scored twice before the midway point in the first quarter and never attempted a pass on the way to ending the Cavaliers’ season with a 35-14 victory at Governor Mifflin High School in Shillington.
London Montgomery, who entered the game with 2,353 yards rushing, carried on the first three plays, but those were his last attempts of the season because of an injury.
By the time the Cavaliers offense could reset, it was already facing a two-touchdown deficit.
Thomas Grabowski ran for the first of his two touchdowns on the opening Wyoming possession.
Andrew Eisenhower scored the next two Wyomissing touchdowns, getting one in each of the first two quarters on the way to finishing with 133 rushing yards to lead a 319-yard ground game.
Scranton Prep punted after Montgomery’s three carries, which produced seven yards, to begin the game.
With the help of its special teams, Wyomissing took a 14-0 lead before Scranton Prep ran another play in the meeting between two of the state’s top three Class 3A teams, according to PennLive.com prior to the game.
Amory Thompson returned the punt into Cavaliers territory and the Spartans wing-T attack, which produced 430 yards a week earlier against Boiling Springs in the District 3 final, went to work.
Grabowski scored on a 2-yard run for a 7-0 lead with 8:19 left in the first quarter.
Third-ranked Scranton Prep could not handle the ensuing kickoff, Ryker Jones recovered and second-ranked Wyomissing took advantage of another short field to expand the lead to 14-0 with 6:09 left on Eisenhower’s 7-yard run.
The Cavaliers fought back with the help of their own big special teams play.
Punter Robert Rossi took off after receiving a low snap and ran 40 yards to set up a 1-yard Liam Barrett touchdown on fourth-and-goal less than a minute into the second quarter.
That made it 14-7, but Wyomissing came up with a third straight scoring drive and Scranton Prep never got that close again.
Eisenhower’s 9-yard run with 8:43 left in the second quarter gave Wyomissing a 20-7 halftime lead.
The Spartans received the second-half kickoff and dominated the third quarter to put the game away.
Scranton Prep’s only possession of the quarter lasted just three plays and lost eight yards.
It was sandwiched between two extended Wyomissing drives, both resulting in scores, one of which came 19 seconds into the fourth quarter.
Grabowski ran 2 yards for the third-quarter touchdown, completing a 12-play, 66-yard drive, and Thompson caught a two-point conversion pass from Ben Zechman. Conversion plays do not count in statistics, so Wyomissing still did not have an official pass attempt, but the Spartans had a 28-7 lead to carry into the fourth quarter.
Thompson’s 18-yard touchdown run then capped an 11-play scoring drive for a 35-7 lead.
Rossi pulled in an 11-yard touchdown pass from Sean Monahan with 2:04 remaining to give Scranton Prep, the Lackawanna Football Conference Division 2 and District 2 Class 3A champion, its final points of the season.
The Cavaliers finished 12-1.
Wyomissing took a 14-0 record into the next round and then advanced to the state final with Friday’s 42-6 rout of Neumann-Goretti.
