Forest Hills blanks Somerset in LHAC battle
Oct. 1—SIDMAN, Pa. — Colten Danel rushed for 97 yards and two touchdowns, while teammate Nate Cornell threw for 126 yards, and added 65 yards on the ground with two scores of his own to lead the Forest Hills Rangers (2-4) past the Somerset Golden Eagles 46-0.
"We just have to trust each other," Cornell said. "We had some good plays tonight and my line played well, giving me time to throw and opening up some big holes for me to run. Just keep pushing forward and we still can have a good season."
While the defense posted a shutout on Friday, Rangers coach Justin Myers thought his team was sluggish to start and needs to be better with tougher competition ahead.
"We came out flat in the first quarter, but once we got the ball rolling in the second, we had some success," Myers said. "We had a lot of mistakes early, but we have had way too many penalties and turnovers this year and we need to clean that up. Colten and Nate ran hard on the counters and had some success tonight, and Nate was able to hit some long throws that helped set that up."
Forest Hills took the opening kickoff and ran an 18-play drive with Danel covering most of the ground, eventually capping it off from 12 yards out to put the Rangers ahead.
Disaster struck for the Golden Eagles on their first play on offense as a bad exchange between quarterback Lane Lambert and Eli Walls on an end around hit the turf. Forest Hills' Devon Brezovec pounced on the loose ball to give possession right back to the Rangers offense at the Somerset 22.
It took five plays for Danel to find a hole on the left side, darting from 7 yards out to make it a 13-0 game.
After a Somerset three-and-out, the Rangers took to the air with a long 46-yard completion from Cornell to Dayton Maul moving the ball into Golden Eagle territory. Cornell then called his own number keeping the ball and sprinting down the right side for a 41-yard run to the 1-yard line.
Cornell kept the ball on the next snap, pushing in from a yard away to make it 19-0.
Somerset, which at this point held the ball for less than two minutes, picked up positive yardage to start the second quarter. Faced with a fourth-and-5 from their own 45-yard line, Somerset coach Jeff Urban rolled the dice, but Lambert's pass was deflected at the line of scrimmage giving the ball back to the Rangers.
Forest Hills continued to work the ground with Mason Papinchak capping off the six-play drive with a 2-yard plunge to stretch the Rangers lead to 26-0.
Another tough break for the Golden Eagles on their next possession — a bad snap to the punter — set the Rangers up inside the Somerset 20-yard line.
Cornell ran 13 yards untouched up the middle for his second score. The Rangers finished the first-half scoring with a seven-play, 2-minute drive with Colby Rearick scoring from a yard out to grow the Forest Hills lead to 40-0.
Forest Hills continued to work the ground with Papinchak in the third who ended the scoring for the night with a 1-yard plunge making it 46-0 midway through the third as both teams began substituting their reserves.
Somerset (0-6) has dropped six straight decisions, but after making the Rangers run 18 plays on their opening drive, Urban took away some positives.
"That first drive was a long drive for them, but we made them drive the field and that was one of our goals, " Urban said. "We did not want to give up big plays, and we did that early in the game. We played good defense in the first quarter, but then in the second they hit a few and we could not overcome that."
