{"id":4945,"date":"2011-09-25T11:15:58","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T15:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=4945"},"modified":"2011-09-25T11:16:20","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T15:16:20","slug":"unionvile-comeback-falls-short-21-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=4945","title":{"rendered":"Unionville comeback falls short, 21-14"},"content":{"rendered":"

Down 21-0 at half, young defense steps up, but Indians run out of time<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Unionville's Richard Sampson fights to hang onto the ball against West Chester Rustin, Saturday. The Indians dropped a tough 21-14 decision to the Knights. Photo by James Gill.<\/p><\/div>\n

WEST CHESTER \u2014 In the weeks to come, it will either be looked back as the turning point or the beginning of the end.<\/p>\n

Unionville found itself down 21-0 at halftime to West Chester Rustin, but fought back to within one score, only to lose a tough 21-14 decision Saturday night.<\/p>\n

With powerhouse Coatesville looming next Friday, the team\u2019s playoff and division hopes will ride on which version of the Indians hits the field: the thoroughly dominated first-half team or the second-half team that doggedly fought back, moved the ball and shut down one of the best offenses in Chester County.<\/p>\n

Injured, battered and a bit overwhelmed by the Golden Knights in the first half, the young Indians (3-1) fought back in the second half, found some rhythm on offense and stopped the Rustin offense which gashed them repeatedly in the first half. After allowing 241 yards of total offense and three touchdowns in the first half, Unionville held the Knights to a stingy 23 yards and no points in the second half.<\/p>\n

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Unionville quarterback Tom Pancoast turns the corner against West Chester Rustin, Saturday night. Pancoast rushed for 96 yards. Photo by James Gill.<\/p><\/div>\n

But, despite the furious efforts of junior quarterback Tom Pancoast (96 yards rushing) and senior running back Richard Sampson (93 yards rushing), it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tale of two halves,\u201d said Unionville head coach Pat Clark. \u201cWe made enough collective mistakes in the first half and that got us. I was really proud of my team, we\u2019re still a relatively young team and we rallied in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

While exceptional again on the ground, Pancoast struggled throwing the ball, completing just two of 14 for 39 yards with two interceptions \u2014 and one of the completions, a 40-yarder to Sampson was fumbled away.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just a little bit off,\u201d Clark said. \u201cTommy handled himself well, he really got the run game going for us in the second half. We haven\u2019t had to throw it much in previous games, we try to work it in practice but…it\u2019s a team game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knights (3-1) seemed ready to rock from the opening snap. Although a long drive bogged down, forcing a punt, it seemed like the Indians were having a lot of trouble containing Rustin\u2019s trio of skilled backs: Cordairo Taylor, Joe Palladino and Conor Burke \u2014 who scored all three touchdowns. For a while, the Unionville defense stretched but didn\u2019t break \u2014 and it took a trick play to break though: a 33-yard wide receiver pass from Anthony Nash to C.J Steinmetz, setting up Burke\u2019s one yard scoring run.<\/p>\n

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Unionville's Riuchard Sampson breaks into open ground, Saturday against West Chester Rustin. Photo by Sean Helle.<\/p><\/div>\n

That score seemed to take the wind out of the young Indians\u2019 defense, already weakened by injuries, and Rustin scored quickly again on its next possession, with Taylor and Burke ripping off long runs and Burke scoring from nine yards out. To add insult to injury, the officiating crew improperly credited Burke with another touchdown, this one from 15 yards out, on the next drive, when \u2014 after looking at video of the play \u2014 he should have been marked down at \u00bd yard line with just 21 seconds left in the first half.<\/p>\n

Unionville wasn\u2019t done, though. Taking the opening kickoff of the second half 67 yards, Sampson and Pancoast slashed through the Rustin defense. Pancoast scored from two yards out, but Sean Barnes missed the extra point, leaving the Indians in a 21-6 hole. After the defense managed to stop Rustin twice \u2014 a Unionville drive was halted after an interception \u2014 Pancoast and Sampson struck again, although it was Sampson who provided a season highlight.<\/p>\n

The duo combined to rush the ball down to the Rustin 35, but with time beginning to be a factor, the Indians attempted to go to air. On a 2nd-and-10 pass Pancoast was shaken up on a sideline hit that resulted in a roughing penalty. With the junior QB out of the game, the Indians went to the Wildcat offense, direct snapping the ball to Sampson. Although a bit battered and clearly tired, the senior put his teammates on his shoulders appeared to drive the offense down the field by pure will, grinding out 20 yards, finally scoring on a five-yard run.<\/p>\n

Needing the points, the Indians opted to go for two, but were denied \u2014 but were saved by a facemask call on Rustin. They didn\u2019t waste the second chance, with Sampson scoring the two to get the score within 21-14.<\/p>\n

That, though, was as far as the comeback went. After stopping Rustin again, Unionville got the ball back with a little bit more than two minutes to go, but were unable to move the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Down 21-0 at half, young defense steps up, but Indians run out of time By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com WEST CHESTER \u2014 In the weeks to come, it will either be looked back as the turning point or the beginning of the end. Unionville found itself down 21-0 at halftime to West Chester Rustin, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[31,593,7427],"class_list":["post-4945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-football","tag-rustin","tag-unionville-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}