GREENE – Greene took an early punch in the mouth, and came back fighting even harder.
After giving up a 34-yard TD run to Tioga’s Eric Wiseman on the first play of the second quarter, the Trojans strung together five unanswered touchdowns to seize a decisive 34-8 Class C victory.
The win secured a second straight postseason spot for Greene (5-3), who were playing the equivalent of a tournament “play-in” game with the winner of Friday’s matchup making the playoffs, and the loser finishing out the season with an inconsequential week nine matchup. “We talked during the week to the seniors about how they wanted to be remembered and what legacy did they want to leave here with?” said Greene head coach Tim Paske. “This is the first time in a few years that a senior class has gone to the postseason two straight years.”
Wiseman gave Tioga an early spark. Returning from an injury that sidelined him for all but the opening game of the season, last year’s top rusher in Section IV broke a pair of tackles near the line of scrimmage and put the Tigers on the board nine seconds into the second period. Wiseman’s powerful two-point run had his team up by eight.
Greene quarterback Nate Whittaker directed Greene on a 58-yard scoring drive on the very next possession. Jake Wentlent picked up a 19-yard gainer to move his club into Tioga territory, and runs by Chris Engler and Garrett Hickey earned chunks of real estate leading to Whittaker’s five-yard TD keeper.
As halftime neared, Tioga suffered a crucial mistake when a punt snap sailed over the head of David Ulrich giving Greene possession at the Tioga 19. Wentlent capitalized immediately with a nifty 19-yard scoring run in which he just about eluded or shed the tackle attempts of every Tigers defender.
Greene’s defense stiffened significantly in the second half allowing just 53 total yards and one drive of more than 20 yards. “We started to regroup on defense at the end of the first half, and that carried through the entire second half,” Paske said. “We had too many guys watching and we wanted to get more people to the football. We definitely did that in the second half.”
Greene scored its final three touchdowns in the fourth getting a 20-yard TD pass from Whittaker to Ben Adams, a 13-yard TD run from Engler, and Wentlent completed a career-high 171-yard performance with a 68-yard dash at the 1:19 mark.
“We wanted to be mudders in the bad weather, and Jake gets really excited to run in the mud,” Paske said. “He had a great game, and this is a game where we wanted our seniors to shine. He was one of those guys, and we had a lot of them really step up.”
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