SINCLAIRVILLE - Cassadaga Valley seemed to have all the answers offensively in a 40-12 thumping of Pine Valley on Saturday afternoon in non-league high school football action.
Whether it was a long, methodical scoring drive or a handful of big plays, the Cougars ran the ball with confidence.
"We executed all game long," Cassadaga Valley coach Nick Spitzer said. "We ran the option well and didn't really need to show too much of our offense."
Article Photos
Cassadaga Valley’s Nick Peterson, left, eludes Pine Valley’s Josh Kilburn en route to a touchdown on Saturday.
Photo by Craig Harvey
A big part of Cassadaga Valley's success was running back, J.B. Boughton, who finished the game with 145 yards on 15 carries with a pair of touchdowns.
The Cougars opening drive went for 80 yards and ate up nearly five minutes of time.
Boughton highlighted the drive with a 25-yard scamper which led to quarterback Jordan Crabtree calling his own number from 15 yards out. The two-point try failed, leaving the score at 6-0 in favor of the home team.
The Panthers answered back with a scoring drive of their own.
Pine Valley picked up a pair of first downs, but was faced with a third-and-10 when Dan Weaver threw a strike to Nick Sandy.
Sandy's one-handed snag went for 30 yards and a score to tie the game at 6-all.
"We gave up a couple big plays," Spitzer said. "We weren't pleased with that. I think we have a good idea of what happened, but we will go study some film and get it figured out."
Cassadaga Valley went on another scoring drive as Boughton picked up two runs of more than 20 yards on the 75-yard drive.
On the second play of the second quarter, Nick Petersen scored from four yards out and Jarrett Blizzard added the two-point conversion to make the score 14-6.
"They were much bigger than us," Pine Valley coach Chris Buczek said. "They played lower than us and everyone knows that if you control the line you win the game, and they controlled the line on both sides of the ball."
The Cougars added two more touchdowns before halftime, both coming on short runs from Boughton, to make the score 28-6 at the half.
The Panthers did not let the score get them down.
On the second play of the third quarter, Sandy took it to the end zone from 65 yards out to cut the score to 28-12.
"It's frustrating," Buczek said. "We know we can put together drives, but we had so many discipline issues and that makes it 1,000 times more frustrating."
On the Panthers' next possession, they were driving down the field when Weaver connected on a 30-yard bomb to move Pine Valley into the red zone.
However, on the play, Weaver was injured and had to come out of the game.
"No one has more heart than Dan," Buczek said of his quarterback. "He was just cramping up all game and couldn't even stand. Dan being out of the game definitely took away a big part of our offense."
So just as the Panthers were attempting to get back into the game, a major component of their offense was missing which stalled Pine Valley's scoring chances.
Cassadaga Valley capped off the game with two more rushing touchdowns from Blizzard.
Blizzard finished the game with 62 yards rushing on eight carries while Tage Reuther racked up 60 yards on seven carries.
"I thought our entire team played well," Spitzer said. "From center to wide receiver to our running backs this was a complete team effort."
Pine Valley will take on Sherman next week while Cassadaga Valley will take on Salamanca.