LEHMAN TWP. — On a beautiful fall Friday night on the black turf, the hometown Lake-Lehman Black Knights celebrated Homecoming in dominant fashion with a commanding 42-0 shutout win over the visiting Tunkhannock Tigers.
It was the their straight victory for Lehman to improve to 5-2 on the season. The Black Knights have outscored opponents 119-7 during the streak, but long-time coach Jerry Gilsky knows they need to keep improving.
“We are going to keep working on it, because right now we are getting towards the end of the regular season and now we are looking at postseason,” Gilsky said. “So we really have to start focusing up and working hard every day.”
The Black Knights were led by their stalwart senior tailback Jim Mitkowski, who was the star of the game with 218 yards on 25 carries and scored a hat trick of rushing touchdowns on the night.
After a slow start, Lehman got on the scoreboard first with 2:09 remaining in the opening quarter when Mitkowski finished off the impressive offensive drive by barreling into the end zone from the 1-yard line to give the Knights a 7-0 advantage.
For Lehman’s second score, it was Mitkowski once again, this time from 27 yards out to extend his team’s lead to 14-0 with 3:38 left in the first half.
For the Knights’ closing score of the half, senior signal caller Hayden Evans found a wide-open Ben Dowling deep down the field for a 30-yard strike to up the lead to 21-0 with just 44 seconds left before the whistle.
To start the second half of play, Lehman continued its scoring barrage when Evans connected with fellow senior Chris Sholtis for a 27-yard touchdown pass to stretch the Knights’ advantage to 28-0 with 7:29 left in the third period.
Lehman’s next score came once again from the dynamic rushing attack of Mitkowski, who scored his third touchdown of the night when he scampered to paydirt from 9 yards out to increase the lead to 35-0 with 1:02 remaining in the third quarter.
For Lehman’s sixth and final touchdown of the contest, sophomore backup quarterback Anthony Magnotta pounded his way into the end zone from 6 yards out to give his team the commanding 42-0 advantage with 3:28 left in regulation.
Now coach Gilsky and his 5-2 Lake-Lehman squad will try to make it four straight wins when they go on the road to face off against a tough Wyoming Area Warriors team next Friday night under the lights.
“We just got to keep working. Every week we still need to get better,” Gilsky said. “Next week we have a big game against Wyoming Area, so we know every game we are going to work hard and treat it like it’s an uphill battle and just get better every week. We still need a lot of improvement.”
Meanwhile, coach Pat Keating and his 2-5 Tunkhannock Tigers will look to bounce back from the defeat when they travel to take on Montrose next week.
Lake-Lehman 42, Tunkhannock 0
Tunkhannock`0`0`0`0 — 0
Lake-Lehman`7`14`14`7 — 42
First Quarter
LL — Jim Mitkowski 1 run (Reilley Kirkutis kick), 2:09.
Second Quarter
LL — Mitkowski 27 run (Kirkutis kick), 3:38.
LL — Ben Dowling 30 pass from Hayden Evans (Kirkutis kick), 0:44.
Third Quarter
LL — Chris Sholtis 27 pass from Evans (Kirkutis kick), 7:29.
LL — Mitkowski 9 run (Logan Law kick), 1:02.
Fourth Quarter
LL — Anthony Magnotta 6 run (Law kick), 3:28.
Team statistics`TUN`LL
First downs`5`22
Rushes-yards`19-48`40-352
Passing yards`46`96
Total yards`94`448
Passing`3-8-0-0`6-6-2-0
Sacked-yards lost`3-28`1-9
Punts-avg.`4-28`0-0
Fumbles-lost`5-2`0-0
Penalties-yards`3-15`6-50
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — TUN, Zach Latwinski 1-13, Caarter O’Neill 1-6, Rowan Hunter 2-7, Karver Lewis 1-2, Lucas Ciprich 9-10, Randall Paxton 5-10. LL, Jim Mitkowski 25-218, Hayden Evans 3-36, Alex Smith 2-neg.8, Anthony Magnotta 2-9, Connor Poulos 2-45, Gavin Shoemaker 4-20, Sam Plummer 2-32.
PASSING — TUN, Zach Latwinski 2-4-40-0-0, Randall Paxton 1-4-6-0-0. LL, Hayden Evans 6-6-96-2-0.
RECEIVING — TUN, Andrew Lupinski 1-37, Caden Simmers 1-3, Daniel Browning 1-6. LL, Chris Sholtis 2-34, Ben Dowling 1-30, Alex Smith 2-26, Gavin Shoemaker 1-6.
INTERCEPTIONS — None.
MISSED FGs — None.
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