B-C, Burgettstown set for showdown in battle of Century
Burgettstown’s Ryan Lounder, right, is hoping to lead the Blue Devils to a critical Century Conference victory tonight over rival Beth-Center.
Beth-Center’s Dominic Fundy has 850 yards rushing and nine touchdowns this season for the Bulldogs.
There is no question as to who the best teams are in the Century Conference.
The question that many still wonder about, and one we’ll at least get a portion of the answer tonight, is this: Who is the best?
“We haven’t been in a game like this forever,” Burgettstown head coach Mark Druga said with excitement when describing the importance of the Blue Devils’ game at Beth-Center at 7 p.m. tonight.
“We have a fan bus going down there. This game has huge ramifications.”
Druga is chomping at the bit to ditch the “they haven’t played anybody, yet” cliche that accompanies Burgettstown (4-0, 5-0). Maybe the rarity of a Washington County matchup pitting two undefeated teams at midseason does the trick.
It hasn’t happened between Beth-Center (3-0, 6-0) and Burgettstown since Joe Kuhns, B-C’s head coach and alum, was a senior in high school. That game ended in a tie.
When Kuhns shifted from a Power-I, stacked backfield where throwing was an afterthought to the newly implemented shotgun, spread-it-out offense B-C now runs, it was specifically for games such as tonight’s.
“The knock when I played on the Beth-Center offense was that we lost the big game because we couldn’t throw,” Kuhns remembers. “Our approach now is to throw even when we don’t have to. When you have five or six good athletes, it’s hard to stuff them into a Power-I. We try to get as much space as we can and use as many different players as we can.”
Enabling the Bulldogs to spread it out was the emergence of junior quarterback Bailey Lincoski, who has completed 44 of 61 passes for 687 yards and nine touchdowns. He also averages 8.7 yards per carry.
For Burgettstown, stopping the B-C offense comes down to limiting one player.
“They are a sound football team across the board but the bottom line is it starts with Dominic Fundy,” Druga said. “He is a heck of an athlete who really stood out last year. Their quarterback also does a real nice job of running the option.”
Fundy, the junior running back, has 850 yards and nine touchdowns on 99 carries this season.
The challenge for Kuhns and the Bulldogs is to be the unstoppable force that moves the immovable object in the Burrgettstown defense, which has only surrendered one touchdown and nine points this season.
“They are big. They are physical. They are aggressive. They tackle well. They are very well coached,” Kuhns said of the Blue Devils’ defense that has scored more points this season than their opponents’ offenses. “It’s just going to have to be patience. It’s going to have to maybe come down to catching them in one of their pressures at the right time. There are always holes in the defense and sometimes it takes longer to find them. It may take four quarters, but somewhere in every defense there is a wrinkle we can take advantage of.”
Those potential wrinkles of weakness Kuhns was referring to might have gotten harder to find now that 6-2, 275-pound nose tackle Angelo Fratini and 6-3, 200-pound defensive end Colby Green returned to practice Monday from injuries. The two juniors also start on the offensive line for Burgettstown, protecting first-year quarterback Ryan Lounder, who switched from wide receiver to under center this offseason.
“Beth Center traditionally has been known for power football and still have their roots on the line of scrimmage,” Druga said. “It’s going to be one heck of a battle in those trenches. We haven’t played anybody with this type of record. But they haven’t played anybody with our record either. There is no doubt it should be a good game.”