Turnovers doom Academy Park against Martinsburg

SHARON HILL >> As the first quarter ended, there wasn’t a coach or player on the Academy Park sideline that felt the Knights were overmatched in their showdown with Martinburg High School of West Virginia, a football team that came to Knight Park with a 32-game winning streak and two consecutive state titles.

But turnovers and mistakes plagued Academy Park all night as the Knights fought hard, but ended the evening with a frustrating 42-20 loss, their first defeat of the season.

Jason Vosheski’s team had three turnovers by the halftime and all three led to Bulldog touchdowns.

“We have everything we needed to compete and potentially win that game,” Vosheski said. “We can’t turn the ball over as many times as we did, and put our defense in a bind and give up points like we did. We’re not that good. NFL teams can’t do that and win.”

Martinsburg led 7-6 after the first quarter. The Knights stopped the visitors on their opening drive, then went on their own drive that went 33 yards to the Martinsburg 41-yard line only to fumble the ball away to Bulldog linebacker Trey Sine, who returned it to the Academy Park 10-yard line. Martinsburg quarterback Grant Harman scored on the next play.

The turnover bug reared its ugly head again and again. Martinsburg linebacker R.J. Barrtett blocked a punt right into the hands of Sine who raced 28 yards for a touchdown to make the score 21-6. Another AP fumble led to a 27-yard touchdown pass from Harman to Jared Bowie to give the Bulldogs a 28-13 advantage.

Academy Park Skylor Fillis threw two second half interceptions and and the Knights lost one more fumble. He finished 10-for-18 for 100 yards. he also carried the ball 12 times for 65 yards and two touchdowns. Darren Gibli added 103 yards and a touchdown on nine carries.

“We made too many mistakes,” Fillis said. “I tried as hard as I could to carry the team but I guess it wasn’t enough. We have to work harder when we come back to practice next week.”

Fillis was 10 of 18 for 100 yards. The senior rushed for 65 yards on 12 carries and two touchdowns.

Gibli finished with 103 yards on nine carries and a score.

“We have to learn how to fight through adversity,” Fillis said. “That’s the one thing we learned. They capitalized on all our mistakes and that’s the reason why the score looks like what it is now. That’s what we have to do.”

Martinsburg head coach David Walker liked what he saw in Fillis.

“He’s a player,” Walker said of Fillis. “He almost took (the game over). We were just able to come up with a few more plays. He’s the real deal.”

The difference was the turnovers.

“We capitalized on some things,” Walker said. We had three scores on turnovers in the first half. It should have been tied up at half, it should have been 14-all or something. We were very fortunate.”

“We learned more about our team, playing that game and losing, than we learned the first four weeks playing those games and winning.” Vosheski said. “It’ll help us next week, it’ll help us the week after.”