Menet’s punt block fires Exeter to 35-21 win over Governor Mifflin; ends Mustangs’ dominance

READING>> It will go down in school lore as “The Punt Block.”

Trailing by two touchdowns early in the second quarter and staring at a 10th straight loss to Governor Mifflin, Exeter lineman/tight end Michal Menet blocked a punt by Mifflin’s Hunter Reeser, pulling back a deflated sideline that was once again peering into the abyss, and helped spark one of the biggest victories in program history.

It cast in motion an improbable 35-point rally that gave Exeter a 35-21 win over Governor Mifflin, a result that handed the Mustangs their first Berks League loss since October of 2010 — 35 county games ago — while placing the Eagles (8-0, 5-0) firmly in the Section 1 driver’s seat with a week to play.

“It was a huge play,” an exhausted Menet said. “I’m so happy that I was able to make a big play and put the momentum on our side, and we just started rolling from there.”

Menet’s punt block set up a quick two-play drive, carried by ground courtesy of sophomore running back Nick Sarangoulis, that got the Eagles back into the contest at 14-7 with 7:14 to play in the first half.

More remarkably, it radically shifted the momentum, permanently, against a shell-shocked Mifflin (5-4, 4-1) team not used to having it shift against them in county play.

“The whole season, we wanted to put ourselves in this position, to have this game be for the county championship right here,” Menet said. “We started a little slow, but we picked it up and dominated from there on out.”

Late in the first half, the Eagles embarked on a game-tying 68-yard, seven-play march capped off by tight end-turned-emergency-quarterback Gabe Schappell’s determined 12-yard scramble to paint with 42 seconds left in the half. Sarangoulis gained the first 56 yards on six consecutive snaps.

Menet and company pulled off the rally under the watchful eye of Penn State head coach James Franklin, who arrived on the sideline at Don Thomas Stadium just after his four-star commit’s punt block.

“It was great to have him here and I was honored that he was able to watch us come back,” Menet said of his future college head coach.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Exeter was languishing at the bottom of the section. The Eagles suffered consecutive winless seasons in 2007 and 2008, and in head coach Matt Bauer’s first campaign, the following year, they won once. So Friday’s victory, against an opponent that has had the section as its playground for more a decade, is a crescendoed watershed moment for the program and Bauer knows it.

“(Lineman) Nate Weber said it best when he said these seniors wanted to leave a legacy and that’s what they did tonight,” Bauer said. “They wouldn’t be denied. We got behind 14-0 tonight and some teams of the past may have folded, but these kids battled right back. And Michal’s punt block was huge. It turned the tide of the whole game.

Mifflin self-destructed, to be blunt. In addition to Menet’s blocked punt on special teams, the Mustangs fumbled the ball away on their first two drives of the second half with the game still very much in the balance.

The first fumble, by Lucas Garner, was recovered by Exeter’s LeRoy Longenecker at the Mifflin 18. It set up the go-ahead score two plays later, when Schappell found Matt Feeney in the end zone on a nine-yard strike to give the Eagles a 21-14 lead — Schappell’s only completion of the night.

Three snaps later, Reeser fumbled on a quarterback keeper. A six-play, 40-yard drive in 2:26 was finished off by Sarangoulis, who went in from a yard out to double the lead.

“We made too many mistakes,” Mifflin head coach Mick Vecchio said, “but, they’re a very good football team and I give them all the credit in the world. Menet came off the edge clean and we didn’t block him. You don’t block somebody and you’re not gonna get it off.

Vecchio said he did not mention the end of Mifflin’s long county winning streak to his team after the game.

“I didn’t bring that up, because to these kids, their record right now is 5-4,” he said. “The winning streak, hey, it was neat to be part of, but it was gonna be over sooner or later.”

The Mustangs roared out to a 14-0 lead on the back Garner, who ran for 115 yards on 12 totes in the first half (he finished with 165 on 22). His four-yard touchdown run late in the first quarter put Mifflin on top, 14-0.

Reeser suffered the punt block, but he earlier played a key role in another botched punt. With Exeter pinned at its own 1 on fourth down in the first quarter, a bad snap in the end zone caused the punt to be partially blocked by a sea of hands. The football drifted out to the 5, where Reeser scooped it up and took it in for the game’s first score. He also scored the game’s final TD from four yards out with 1:11 left.

As if locked in a personal one-up battle, Garner and Sarangoulis provided the vast majority of stats from scrimmage. Sarangoulis wrapped his big night with 133 rushing yards on 22 carries.

 

Governor Mifflin –  14  0  0  7 — 21

Exeter –  0  14  14  7  — 35

First quarter

GM – Hunter Reeser, 5 blocked punt return (Ben Myers kick), 6:02

GM – Lucas Garner 4 run (Myers kick), 2:20

Second quarter

E – Nick Sarangoulis 2 run (Nick Bentz kick), 7:14

E – Gabe Schappell 12 run (Bentz kick), :42

Third quarter

E – Matt Feeney 9 pass from Schappell (Bentz kick), 9:33

E – Sarangoulis 1 run (Bentz kick), 5:56

Fourth quarter

E – LeRoy Longenecker 28 run (Bentz kick), 5:43

GM – Reeser 4 run (Myers kick), 1:11