NTL FOOTBALL: TOWANDA HEADS TO ATHENS IN DIVISIONAL TILT (2024-10-04)

BY CHRIS MANNING
Northern Tier Sports Report
Towanda (4-2) travels to Athens (3-3) and it has all the makings of a wild one for the 7 p.m. kick-off on Saturday. The Knights are coming off a big win over Canton, while the Wildcats held on to beat Wellsboro last week.

“Athens has a potent offense that all starts with their QB,” Wecker said. “We’ve faced several really good dual threat QBs, but Davidson may be the best of them. He’s a real twitchy kid who can hurt you if you take bad angles and get a little undisciplined defensively. Their running back runs hard and they have some good receivers who can hurt you. Defensively, I think they have improved quite a bit throughout the season. We are going to have to work for our yards.”

Connor Davidson has over 1300 total yards this season, with 702 on the ground and 10 touchdowns. Through the air he has 640 yards with a .505 completion percentage, while tossing five touchdowns against four interceptions.

“We need to stay gap sound and take good angles to try and contain him,” Wecker said. “He’s a really good athlete, so he’s going to get his yards, but we have to try to limit him as much as possible.”

Offensively, they counter with Riley Vanderpool. In two less games he has just over 1,000 total yards, with 589 on the ground and eight touchdowns. Through the air he has a .620 completion percentage with 482 yards and three touchdowns against two picks.

“I thought we settled down nicely in the second half last week, and our offense started to get rolling,” remarked Wecker. ‘We just need to pick up where we left off, play our game, and ignore the outside noise. Play for each other and have fun.”

KEYS TO THE GAME

Towanda — Keep the penalties under control. The only blemish from last week was the 170 yards of penalties. A team can only do that so many times and come away with a win.

Athens — Contain the run. Towanda’s pass attack has been better this season, but their bread and butter is runs by Vanderpool. They can’t let him get out, especially since Towanda is a very good downfield blocking team.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Sawyer Robinson, Towanda, LB - Robinson leads the team with 45 tackles on the season, nine of them for a loss. He’ll need to have a big game if they’re going to slow down Davidson.

Lucas Persun, Athens, LB, RB — Persun is one of the team’s leading tacklers with 35. Much like Robinson, he’ll be called upon to slow up Vanderpool.

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