SOUTH WESTERN MUSTANGS GRIDIRON 2010-11

By Bill Engelhardt
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Last Friday evening, November 5, the Mustangs of South Western hosted the Rockets of Spring Grove at the Mustang Corral and the Rockets blasted off to a 31-14 win, propelling them into the District 3 Class AAAA playoffs. As the number 10 seed the Rockets (6-4) will visit the 7th seeded Eagles of Cumberland Valley (8-2) next week.

The Mustangs went three and out and punted to open the game but the Rockets fumbled on their first play from scrimmage. Ryan Sexton recovered for the Mustangs at the Rockets 45-yard line. The Mustangs ended up punting and the Rockets had to do the same after a sack by Sexton. Max Ruby recovered a Mustangs fumble for the Rockets and the Rockets had to punt again after a sack by Matt Funk for the Mustangs. The Mustangs punted from their 1-yard line and the first quarter ended without any score.

The Rockets put together a 20-yard drive in four plays and Josh Slate scored a touchdown on a 10-yard run. Ben Reigart’s extra point kick put the Rockets up 7-0 at the 10:56 mark in the second quarter.

The Mustangs drove 35-yards to the Rockets 28-yard line in a drive that featured Ryan Sexton’s 5-yard run for a first down on a fake punt play. However, Reigart intercepted a pass for the Rockets at their 28-yard line. They drove 72–yards in 10 plays, featuring a 40-yard pass from Neal Grudi to Reigart. Reigart kicked a 33-yard field goal to up the score to 10-0 with 3:28 left in the first half.

The Mustangs went three and out and punted from their 28-yard line. The Rockets started at their 49-yard line and wasted no time as Grudi lofted a 51-yard touchdown pass to Reigart. Reigart’s extra point put the Rockets up 17-0 with 1:44 left in the half.

The Rockets opened the second half and went three and out and punted. The Mustangs got off three plays and Jordan Klunk intercepted a pass for the Rockets at the Mustangs 24-yard line. Three plays later, after being pushed back to the 30-yard line, Grudi threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Keith Stambaugh and Reigart’s extra point kick upped the score to 24-0 with 7 minutes left in the third quarter.

The Mustangs ended up punting again and the Rockets drove 55-yards in five plays, featuring a 36-yard pass from Grudi to Stambaugh. Grudi lofted a 24-yard touchdown pass to Reigart and Reigart’s extra point kick upped the score to 31-0 at the 3:17 mark in the third quarter.

The Mustangs and the Rockets exchanged punts. The Mustangs drove 52-yards, featuring a 9-yard run by Jake Shaffer and a 12-yard run by Mike Pugh, only to turn the ball over on downs at the Rockets 8-yard line. Dillon Higgins recovered a Rockets fumble for the Mustangs at the 8. Three plays later Mike Felton plunged in from the 5-yard line for a touchdown and Brendan Lawson’s extra point kick made the score 31-7 with 3:25 left in the game.

The Rockets went three and out and punted. The Mustangs drove 80-yards in two plays. Jesse Good threw a beautiful 33-yard pass to Tommy Nicklas and followed that up with another beauty, a 47-yard touchdown strike to Felton. Lawson’s extra point kick closed out the scoring with 58 seconds left in the game, with the Rockets up 31-14.

Mike Felton kicked off 2 times for 87-yards, with the longest going for 47-yards. Casey Froehlich punted 6 times for 168-yards, for an average of 28-yards, with the longest going for 38-yards, for the Mustangs. Felton returned 5 kickoffs for 112-yards, with the longest going for 30-yards, for the Mustangs. Felton returned 1 punt for 7-yards and Mike Pugh returned 1 punt for no yards, as it was a Fair Catch, for the Mustangs.

Ryan Sexton led the Mustangs defense with 10 tackles, a fumble recovery, a sack, and a pass hurry, followed by Cody Kephart with 9 tackles, Mike Pugh with 7 tackles, Aaron Bosley and Jake Shaffer with 6 tackles each, Casey Froehlich, Mike Felton and Leonard Sturgis with 5 tackles each, Matt Funk with 4 tackles and a sack, Ryan Dotson and Tyler Frederick with 3 tackles each, Levi Buck, Brady Conroy, Rich Delea, and Zach Townsend with 2 tackles each, Dillon Higgins with 1 tackle and a fumble recovery, and Marty Deal, Carnie Fryfogle, Pete O’Shea, and Woody Stetter with 1 tackle each.

Aaron Bosley, Brady Conroy, Ryan Dotson, Tyler Frederick, Carnie Fryfogle, Matt Funk, Josh Hertz, Ryan Sexton, and Leonard Sturgis, manned the offensive and defensive line and linebacker positions. Mike Felton, Casey Froehlich, Brandon Krise, and Mike Pugh, patrolled the secondary for the Mustangs.

The Mustangs gained 97-yards rushing and 120 yards passing for a total of 217-yards of offense. Mike Felton led the Mustangs rushing attack with 13 carries for 39-yards (including a 5-yard touchdown), followed by Jeff Hacker with 12 for 37, Jake Shaffer with 5 for 27, Mike Pugh with 6 for 12-yards, Jesse Good with 3 for minus 8-yards and Zach Gross with 2 for minus 10-yards. Quarterback Good completed 5 of 8 passes for 119-yards and 1 touchdown, 3 for 74-yards to Felton (including a 47-yard touchdown) and 2 for 45-yards to Tommy Nicklas, and quarterback Gross completed 1 of 10 passes for 1-yard to Cody Kephart, for the Mustangs. Brandon Lawson kicked 2 extra points, Dillon Higgins and Ryan Sexton each recovered a fumble, and Matt Funk and Sexton each recorded a sack, for the Mustangs.

The Rockets gained 55-yards rushing and 180-yards passing for a total of 235-yards gained. Joshua Slate led the Rockets rushing attack with 15 carries for 40-yards (including a 10-yard touchdown), followed by Juwan Fitchett with 8 for 17, Andrew Walker with 5 for 10, Alex Guinn with 2 for 3-yards, Keith Stambaugh with 2 for no yards, Cortlin Dell with 1 for minus 2-yards, and Neal Grudi with 4 for minus 13-yards. Quarterback Grudi completed 6 of 10 passes for 180-yards and 3 touchdowns, 3 for 117-yards to Ben Reigart (including touchdowns of 52 and 25-yards), 2 for 65-yards to Stambaugh (including a 30-yard touchdown), and 1 for minus 2-yards to Walker, for the Rockets. Reigart kicked a 32-yard field goal and 4 extra points, Max Ruby recovered a fumble, and Jordan Klunk intercepted a pass for the Rockets.

The 9-time Cavalcade of Bands Champions, Tournament of Bands Group IV Champion and US Scholastic Band Champion South Western Mustangs Marching Band proudly made a terrific post game presentation of its 2010 field show “Los Sonidas de España.” The show opened with “Grenada,” followed by John Tesh’s “Barcelona,” and “The Toreador Song” from Bizet’s opera Carmen. The show closed with an arrangement of Michael Daugherty’s Candelabra Rumba and the traditional España Cañi. The Spring Grove Marching Band put on a spirited half time show. The Mustangs and the Rockets cheerleaders excited the faithful with their cheers.

The Mustangs of South Western are 4-6-0 overall and 1-4-0 in York Adams Interscholastic Athletic Association (YAIAA) Division I league play.

Don Seidenstricker has a 187-85-1 (.688) record as coach of the Mustangs, who have a career record of 328-203-8. The results of the 539 games played in the history of the South Western Mustangs are a career .618 winning percentage and a .623 non-losing percentage.

We bid a tearful farewell and offer our best wishes for the future to the 22 departing seniors. We owe them all our gratitude for their efforts in providing us with exciting football over the course of their high school careers. They all played in this their final game. They are: Aaron Bosley, Levi Buck, Brady Conroy, Marty Deal, Tyler Frederick, Casey Froehlich, Matt Funk, Jeff Hacker, Josh Hertz, Dillon Higgins, Cody Kephart, Brendan Lawson, Gabe Miller, Tommy Nicklas, Pete O’Shea, Mike Pugh, Ryan Sexton, Derek Schneider, Jake Shaffer, Bill Shirley, Woody Stetter, and Leonard Sturgis.

I want to say a very special thank you to Richard Lupro for faithfully compiling the official Offensive, Special Teams and Scoring statistics for the Mustangs, and for inputting them, and the Defensive statistics, at the Max Preps web site very quickly each week so that they were always available for my use. He was instrumental in coming up with many of the records that will be mentioned below. And a very special thank you also goes to longtime Mustangs line coach Chuck Seidenstricker for providing vital Defensive statistics to me, and to Dick Lupro, for input to the web site, after reviewing game films on very short notice.

The 2010 edition of the Mustangs of South Western gave their fans lots of excitement and thrills.

With a year still to go in his career, Mike Felton already is in third place in the history of the school in career pass receptions with 47 (Tim Rill tops the list with 70). He is also in forth place in touchdown pass receptions with 10 (Drew Snyder tops the list with 14). And he is in forth place in career passing yardage with 747-yards (Tim Rill tops the list with 992-yards). For 2010, Felton caught 23 passes for 378-yards and 4 touchdowns, for a 16.44-yard average.

Felton is also tied with Allen Zepp (1977 season) in third place in the history of the school with a season punting average of 39.0-yards, with 28 punts for 1,093-yards. This will put him in the 2010 “Keystone Club” at the Pennsylvania Football News web site. He also stands tied with Zepp for first place for career punting average with that 39.0-yards, but his career still has a year to go.

Felton also led the team in kickoff returns with 17 for 391-yards, for a 23-yard average. Mike Pugh returned 10 kickoffs foe 190-yards, for a 19-yard average.

Felton led the team in scoring with 98 points, from 14 touchdowns, 12 extra point kicks and a two-point conversion. He was followed by Jeff Hacker with 48 points on 8 touchdowns, Mike Pugh with 24 points on 4 touchdowns, Tommy Nicklas with 14 points on 2 touchdowns and a 2-point conversion, Brendan Lawson with 7 points on extra point kicks, and Jesse Good, Ryan Sexton and Matt Stroda with 6 points each on 1 touchdown each. The team scored 209 points for the season.

Jeff Hacker had 140 carries for 820-yards and 8 touchdowns rushing, followed by Mike Felton with 112 for 722-yards and 10 touchdowns, Mike Pugh with 43 for 257-yards and 3 touchdowns, Ryan Sexton with 37 for 189-yards, Matt Stroda with 8 for 33-yards and 1 touchdown, Reid Cruz with 6 for 33-yards, Dillon Langenfeld with 5 for 28-yards, Jake Shaffer with 5 for 27-yards, Jesse Good with 44 for 25-yards and 1 touchdown, Nick Bond with 4 for 25-yards, Carnie Fryfogle with 7 for 22-yards, Dakotah Moses with 2 for 10-yards, Marty Deal with 1 for 2-yards, Jake Hunt with 1 for minus 10-yards, Zach Gross with 4 carries for minus 12-yards, and a team loss of 2-yards. There was a net of 423 carries for 2,159-yards and 23 touchdowns for the season.

Jake Shaffer led the team in tackles with 100 on the season. This will also put him in the 2010 “Keystone Club.” Other players with at least 50 tackles for the season were: Cody Kephart, with 85, Ryan Sexton with 80, Mike Felton and Matt Funk with 74 each, Aaron Bosley and Leonard Sturgis with 63 each, Carnie Fryfogle with 62, and Mike Pugh with 51 tackles.

Matt Funk led the team with 5 sacks on the season. Carnie Fryfogle and Ryan Sexton followed right behind with 3 sacks each, Aaron Bosley had 2 sacks and a bevy of Mustangs each had a sack, for a team total of 20 sacks for the season.

Jesse Good completed 54 of 114 passes for 809-yards and 6 touchdowns and Zach Gross completed 11 of 31 passes for 157-yards and 2 touchdowns. The season reception leaders were Felton with his 23 for 378-yards and 4 touchdowns, followed by Tommy Nicklas with 6 for 129-yards and 2 touchdowns, Ryan Sexton with 7 for 96-yards and 1 touchdown, Casey Froehlich with 4 for 92-yards, Cody Kephart with 8 for 82-yards, Mike Pugh with 6 for 55-yards and 1 touchdown, Carnie Fryfogle with 1 for 46-yards, Jeff Hacker with 5 for 34-yards, Brandon Krise with 2 for 23-yards, Dillon Langenfeld with 2 for 19-yards, and Keith Pappas with 1 for 12-yards. That adds up to 65 receptions for 966-yards and 8 touchdowns for the season.

The 2010 Mustangs represented their school and league honorably, played hard, never gave up, and they were clearly a team for which we can all be proud. They have a great nucleus of returning players from the junior varsity and solid players coming up within the ranks. I can’t wait for next season to begin. Until then, GO MUSTANGS GO.