This past Thursday, the Juniata Indians faced the DuBois Beavers for the Class 4A regional title. Juniatas defense was a wall that DuBois couldn’t knock down, the Juniata D kept the Beavers score at 0 during the first half and at 7 for the second half. Both teams really brought their best game during the first half, Juniata’s notorious defense, paired with DuBois’s striking offense made it a great game to watch for the crowd. Both teams really left it all on the field at halftime, with Juniata holding onto a slim 3-0 lead. These were the only points scored in the 1st & 2nd quarter (a 25-yard field goal kicked by Brant Walters. It was the first field goal kicked this whole season). Juniata had a big defensive play headed by Jonathan Kauffman in which he sacked the DuBois quarterback. Once again, Juniata’s defense was on their A-game when Lane Piper blocked a punt and got a fumble recovery.
In the second half, Juniata found themselves in the endzone after many attempts at a touchdown, with Waylon Ehrenzeller scoring a rushing touchdown on his first game back from his shoulder injury. This point brought the score to 10-0. The Juniata Defense made itself known on the field by keeping the Beavers from scoring anything until the 4th quarter. The DuBois offense stepped up their game and made the score 10-7 in the last quarter, when Garrett Frantz had a touchdown. In the last minutes of the last quarter, Waylon Ehrenzeller scored his second touchdown of the night, making the scoreboard show 17-7. There was a tremendous amount of fight from both teams to win the regional championship. One notable example of this was the 5 straight interceptions during the game’s second period. Two of those interceptions were made by Juniata, one by Seth Laub a Junior, and the other by Casey Smith a Senior.
This Saturday Juniata (8-3) will face off against the Meadville Bulldogs (11-1) for the first round of states at Bald Eagle Area at 5pm. Last year, Juniata played Meadville during the first round of the state championship and lost 34-27 after a well played game by both the Indians and Bulldogs. We wish our team the best of luck this Saturday, come out and support them as they play a great game. Good luck boys!