PALMYRA – At a glance, it wouldn’t seem like a 47-14 final score qualifies as a rally. But it was.
Waynesboro trailed Palmyra 14-12 early in the second quarter, leaving the Indians in another déjà vu moment. The previous week, Waynesboro fell behind Red Land 7-0 but kicked into a different gear and left with a 23-13 win.
The potential for a slippery slope scenario against a team the Tribe should have won did not manifest itself. For the second week in a row, head coach Mark Saunders’ team got out of its own way and scored the final 35 points of the game en route to a rout in a Mid-Penn Keystone Division varsity football game.
Nathan Nolan scored two touchdowns and rushed for 109 yards. Hayden Nolan ran for a touchdown that gave Waynesboro a 12-7 lead. Quarterback Rayshawn Frazer-Hewitt tossed touchdown passes to Steven Howard and Tank Benedict, and Larry Taylor capped the scoring with a 17-yard touchdown run.
Waynesboro improved to 4-1 at the halfway point of the season. The Indians will host Northern for Homecoming on Friday, Sept. 27.
Travis McDannell scored both touchdowns for the Cougars. He returned a kickoff for one and broke off a 65-yard TD run.
“We were trying to keep the ball away from (McDannell),” said Saunders of McDannell’s return for a touchdown. “I wasn’t really surprised. It was a good test for us to rise to the occasion. We’ve been through every gamut of emotion. We’ve seen a lot. We got better, because we couldn’t stop them at first.
“I have extreme confidence in our guys. What I liked about tonight is that we could easily have played down in the second half. I thought we did better in the second half. We had far too many penalties. It’s game five and I know we have a lot to work on.”
It was a game of big plays – all part of a wider game, to be sure. But the play that’ll have players and coaches pressing the rewind button was Frazer-Hewitt’s 23-yard scoring pass to Benedict. It was a thing of beauty. Frazer-Hewitt dropped straight back, stayed in the pocket, was pressured, and just before the defense could wrap him up, he let go an awkward but directionally accurate pass to Benedict. Benedict lost his balance and fell backward but caught the ball with both hands and held on after falling hard on his back in the end zone.
“I got hit from the backside, so when I threw it to Tank it was a little short,” said Frazer-Hewitt. “He made a nice play and caught it. I saw the DB jump, so I didn’t know what was going to happen. But when I got up, I saw Tank caught it.”
Benedict, who also caught a 24-yard pass earlier in the second half, gave the Indians a 34-14 after Alex Torbica kicked the extra point with 20.8 seconds left in the third quarter.
“I was hyped,” Benedict said of his catch. “Because all week at practice I’m saying to Ray, ‘Throw me the rock, throw me the rock.’ He threw it to me two times, one for a touchdown.”
Benedict’s big score was set up by a Keyon Mobley interception.
After Hayden Nolan scored to give Waynesboro a 12-7 lead, McDannell ran to his left, burst through an opening, and ran 65 yards for a 14-12 lead.
Then the game turned on a dime.
Waynesboro drove 58 yards on 10 plays and Nolan Smith finished off the possession with a 2-yard touchdown run. Calvin Myers made a nice catch that yielded 20 yards, giving the Tribe a first down at the Palmyra 20.
The Cougars fumbled the kickoff, and it wasn’t long before Waynesboro was in the end zone again. Nathan Nolan raced 39 yards to the Palmyra 11-yard line on first down. Three plays later, Howard was on the receiving end of an 11-yard touchdown strike and a 27-14 lead.
Nolan ran for a 14-yard score, and the Tribe defense allowed scant yardage. The Cougars went 3-and-out following a Waynesboro punt and holding a 14-12 lead.
The Indians then closed the first half with back-to-back touchdowns.
Palmyra tried to move the ball on the initial possession of the third quarter but did not convert a fourth down play. Ben Williams and Benedict brought down McDannell for a loss of one that could have given the Cougars a first down. On the next play Andrew Florek chased the quarterback out of the pocket resulting in an incomplete pass on third down.
Nate Adkins made a nice tackle before McDannell could get into the open field running to the edge as Palmyra was held to another three-and-out on its next offensive series.
Benedict took down McDannell for a loss of eight yards just two plays before Mobley’s pick. The Indians recorded four more tackles for loss, including one for minus-9 yards by Kean Baumgardner on fourth down that gave Waynesboro the ball at the Palmyra 30. Two plays later, Taylor scampered for the score.
