LEHMAN TWP. — On a muggy September night, the visiting Scranton Prep Cavaliers dominated from start to finish in their 49-6 road triumph over the Lake-Lehman Black Knights.
Scranton Prep coach Terry Gallagher was happy but not fully satisfied with his club’s solid effort on the night.
“A lot of it is a unique aspect of Lehman’s spread one play and then they go back to their wing set,” Gallagher said. “So the wing stuff, you have to be super disciplined, and sometimes our kids get a little fired up and they get out of position a little bit. It happened once or twice, so we have to do a better job of that.”
Scranton Prep kicked off its scoring barrage with 7:52 left in the first quarter when senior standout tailback Quinten Palermo completed a long successful first offensive drive for his squad with a 1-yard goal line to give his team a 7-0 early advantage.
Just a couple of minutes later, with 5:17 remaining in the opening quarter, senior wide out Liam Barrett broke free for a lightning quick 33-yard touchdown run to increase the Cavaliers’ lead to 14-0.
For Prep’s final points of the quarter, Barrett took it to the house once again, this time on an electrifying 66-yard punt return for a touchdown to increase his team’s lead to 21-0 with just 33 seconds left.
In the second quarter, Prep would score 21 points again, as Palermo got things started by picking up his second 1-yard touchdown run of the contest, as the Cavaliers stretched their lead out to 28-0 with 6:13 remaining in the first half.
For Prep’s next score, signal-caller Louis Paris connected with fellow junior Jalonte Weeks on a beautiful over-the-shoulder deep ball into the end zone from 34 yards out to increase the advantage to 35-0 with 5:05 left in the half.
Finally, Paris would score on a 14-yard scamper immediately after his team blocked a punt deep into Lake-Lehman territory to up the lead to 42-0 with 3:45 before halftime.
In the second half, Lake-Lehman got on the scoreboard as junior tailback Jim Mitkowski barreled into the end zone from the 1-yard line to cut the deficit to 42-6 with 1:58 remaining in the third quarter.
The Cavaliers reserves would get one more score of their own, as sophomore running back Gabe Borges added a 3-yard touchdown run to give his squad the 49-6 advantage with 4:06 left in regulation.
With the victory, the Cavaliers stayed perfect at 3-0 on the young high school football season, after previously trouncing Lakeland 70-7 in week-one and West Scranton 42-12 last week, both in home contests.
The Black Knights fall to 0-3, previously losing at home to Western Wayne 35-13 in the season opener and last week fell on the road at Lackawanna Trail 48-7.
Scranton Prep will try to make it four straight wins to start the season when they go on the road next Friday night in their battle with Scranton at Scranton Memorial Stadium.
“There’s definitely areas of improvement, so that’s what we will focus on going into a big matchup against Scranton next week,” Gallagher said. “We will make practice as hard as possible, we’ll bust them, and try to get them as ready to go as we possibly can, because it will be a big game this week.”
Meanwhile the Black Knights will look to bounce back and capture their first win of the season when they go on the road to Spartan Stadium in Kingston next Saturday at 1 p.m. against Holy Redeemer.
Scranton Prep 49, Lake-Lehman 6
Scranton Prep `21`21`0`7 — 49
Lake-Lehman`0`0`6`0 — 6
First Quarter
SP — Quinten Palermo 1 run (Jack Hartshorn kick), 7:52
SP — Liam Barrett 33 run (Hartshorn kick), 5:17
SP — Barrett 66 punt return (Hartshorn kick), 0:33
Second Quarter
SP — Palermo 1 run (Hartshorn kick), 6:13
SP — Jalonte Weeks 34 pass from Louis Paris (Hartshorn kick), 5:05
SP — Paris 14 run (Hartshorn kick), 3:45
Third Quarter
LL — Jim Mitkowski 1 run (kick failed), 1:58
Fourth Quarter
SP — Gabe Borges 3 run (Hartshorn kick), 4:06
Team statistics`SP`LL
First downs`20`12
Rushes-yards`30-262`38-157
Passing yards`37`39
Total yards`299`196
Passing’2-3-1-0`3-8-0-0
Sacked-yards lost`0-0`2-13
Punts-avg.`0-0`2-34
Fumbles-lost`0-0`3-1
Penalties-yards`2-20`4-25
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — SP, Quinten Palermo 8-78, Louis Paris 4-60, Liam Barrett 1-33, Tyler Mackrell 2-11, Sal Talarico 5-26, Gabe Borges 1-3, Will McPartland 2-4, Caleb Rutkoski 5-29, Mackey Lynett 2-18. LL, Gavin Shoemaker 9-54, Jim Mitkowski 14-51, Hayden Evans 3-10, Sam Plummer 7-22, Anthony Magnotta 2-14, Connor Poulos 1-2, Keagan Bennett 1-2, Carter Deyo 1-2.
PASSING — SP, Louis Paris 1-2-34-1-0, Tyler Mackrell 1-1-3-0-0. LL, Hayden Evans 3-8-39-0-0.
RECEIVING — SP, Jalonte Weeks 1-34, Brady Holmes 1-3. LL, Ben Dowling 3-39.
INTERCEPTIONS — None.
MISSED FGs — None.
