Deer Lakes defense comes through in Big East victory over Burrell

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, September 29, 2018 | 12:09 AM

Previous Next

Previous Next

Deer Lakes’ defense walked off the Lancer Stadium turf at a loss two weeks ago after surrendering more than 400 rushing yards and a 13-point lead in a disheartening defeat against Yough.

This time around, the Lancers made all the key stops and earned a happier result.

Deer Lakes forced a pair of red-zone turnovers and a key turnover on downs, holding off a resilient Burrell in a 34-21 victory Friday night in a Class 3A Big East game at Lancer Stadium.

“Hats off to my defensive coaches: They prepare, and the kids buy in,” Deer Lakes coach Tim Burk said. “We harp on it all week about how you’ve got to be physical, you have to come to play for 48 minutes, and this week they did.”

Two weeks after Yough’s Dustin Shoaf ran through, around and over Deer Lakes en route to a 401-yard performance, the Lancers (3-2, 3-2) held Burrell’s star running back, Luke Kastelic, mainly in check. Kastelic rushed for 92 yards and a touchdown, but many of the yards came late in the fourth quarter with the game in hand.

Deer Lakes also forced and recovered a fumble in the end zone on the opening drive of the game and added an Aris Hasley end-zone interception and a red-zone turnover on downs while clinging to a seven-point lead in the third quarter.

“It’s a big turnaround,” Hasley said. “Momentum’s going one way … they might score, and getting a turnover, that’s huge.”

The defense supported another strong offensive effort by Deer Lakes, as Hasley passed for 192 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 93 yards and a score. Jared Colton, Jack Hollibaugh and Ethan Bender caught touchdown passes, and Colton added a fourth-quarter score on a jet sweep. The Lancers rushed for 165 yards.

Burrell (1-5, 1-4) pulled out all the stops, hitting on a reverse pass from wide receiver Seth Fischbach to Jack Henderson for a long first-quarter touchdown and testing Deer Lakes with a variety of different formations.

“I’m proud of the way our kids came out and competed tonight,” Burrell coach Shawn Liotta said. “We had some things that didn’t go our way, a couple turnovers in the red zone. I thought the one was big on the first drive, we didn’t punch it in on the inch line. That kind of hurt us a little bit, but we rallied from that and certainly had our opportunities.”

Instead, Deer Lakes came away with the win in front of a packed homecoming crowd that included more than a dozen members of the 1969 Lancers team, the first in school history. The Lancers moved into fourth place in the Big East, a half-game in front of Yough, ahead of next week’s game against rival Freeport (2-3, 2-3).

“Most incredible game I’ve ever played in,” Hasley said. “I love the stands, I love the atmosphere, the whole community coming together. This is something special.”

Burrell took its opening drive 68 yards on 12 plays, taking more than five minutes off the clock, and looked poised for the opening score of the game, but the Bucs fumbled into the end zone on first-and-goal at the 1-yard line, and Deer Lakes recovered for a touchback.

Deer Lakes made Burrell pay for the mistake when Hasley rolled left and found Colton in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown, but Burrell answered with some trickery. Fischbach took a pitch on a reverse and threw to a wide-open Jack Henderson, who raced downfield for a 61-yard score.

“You saw the resiliency of our kids,” Liotta said. “We came down and scored on the next drive off of that. Our kids certainly didn’t allow that to affect them. We work on sudden change, we work on dealing with those kinds of things and dealing with momentum.

“Football’s such a momentum game that we try to turn that momentum back our way, and we were able to do that for a period of time. But to Deer Lakes’ credit, they made plays when they needed to make plays.”

A fourth-down pass from Hasley to a sliding Hollibaugh from 7 yards out allowed Deer Lakes to retake the lead, and Hasley’s 12-yard run made it 21-7 before Kastelic’s 1-yard plunge made it 21-14 late in the second quarter.

Hasley’s third touchdown pass, to Bender from 5 yards out, made it 28-14 early in the fourth quarter, and Colton added a 5-yard score on a jet sweep to make it 34-14 before Burrell scored in the final seconds on a touchdown pass from Logan Phillips to Fischbach.

“Things got a little wild, but our kids kept focused and continued to play,” Burk said. “We were able to prevail at the end, but (Burrell’s) a good football team. They’re up and coming for sure.”

Doug Gulasy is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Doug at dgulasy@tribweb.com or via Twitter @dgulasy_Trib.

Tags: Burrell, Deer Lakes