WEST SUNBURY, Pa. (EYT) — Clarion used a balanced offense and a stingy defense Friday night to beat Moniteau 31-6.

(Story by Shane Lux, Special to ExploreClarion)

(Photo of Clarion’s Colton Rapp. File photo by Mike Schnelle. Check out more of Schnelle’s work here)

With the victory, Clarion improved to 5-0 overall.

Listen to the archived broacast of the game via ExploreRadio.

Colton Rapp, Spencer Miller and Ty Burford did the heavy lifting for the Bobcats.

Rapp lead the ground game with 118 yards and two touchdowns, while Miller completed 7-of-14 passes for 170 yards and two scores. Burford added 3 catches for 98 yards and score, which was 55-yard Hail Mary — the Bobcats second Hail Mary to end a half this year — with no time remaining in the first half giving Clarion a comfortable 18-0 lead at the break.

Clarion threw for the 170 yards and rushed for 202, while limiting Moniteau to 153 total yards of offense.

“They were throwing a lot of people in the box, and we wanted to get out on the perimeter but they did a good job of taking that away,” said Clarion head coach Larry Wiser. “Spencer (Miller) did a great job and Ty (Burford) is a great receiver, he made some huge catches. Ryley McMaster as well made a great catch down there in the end zone.”

Clarion’s defense made a statement early stopping Moniteau’s Mitch DiMaria for no gain on a fourth-and-1 from the Clarion 17-yard line.

“We have been playing a lot of pass oriented teams.” said Wiser. “We had the pass-rush mentality and we were coming up the field too far, but then our kids started to settle down. I thought we did a pretty good job defensively after that.”

Rapp, who rushed for just 17 yards on 6 carries last year vs. Moniteau, exploded on a 69-yard run to the Warriors 1-yard line. On the next play, Michael McCloskey scored from a yard out putting the Bobcats in front 6-0 after the failed extra point. Rapp rushed for 82 yards on the 4-play, 83-yard drive.

Clarion was able to capitalize late in the second quarter as a bad snap forced Moniteau punter Dacota Skiver to pull the down losing three yards on the play back to their 25-yard line. Colton Rapp’s 24-yard run on second-and-10 led to his first touchdown of the night from yard out two plays later putting the Bobcats up 12-0 at the 2:02 mark of the second quarter.

With nine seconds remaining in the first half Clarion recovered a Moniteau fumble at their own 45-yard line.

Quarterback Spencer Miller dropped back and launched a bomb down the far sideline to Burford who made a fantastic over the shoulder catch over Dalton Anderson and raced to the end zone as Clarion went ahead 18-0 at the break.

Wasting little time putting the game away in the third quarter the Bobcats marched 70 yards in nine plays capped by Rapp’s second touchdown of the night from a yard out that pushed the lead to 24-0 following another failed two-point conversion. Miller’s 13-yard completion to Thomas Wurster on a 4th-and-13 was the big play of the drive.

Following Burford’s interception of a Nagy pass, Clarion was looking at a first-and-10 from the Moniteau 20-yard line. That first-and-10 quickly turned to a fourth-and-10, but Miller and the Bobcat offense came up big again as he found McMaster for a 20-yard touchdown as the Clarion lead grew to 31-0.

Moniteau finally got on the scoreboard early in the fourth quarter as Corey Goyak ran a fourth-and-1 toss 12 yards for a touchdown capping a six-play, 42-yard drive.

Freshman Nick Martino led the Warriors with 88 yards 19 carries.

“Philosophically we’re buying into how we need to practice each week, we need to come back Monday and get the next game plan in and become a better football team,” said Wiser. “We’re not where we need to be by the end of the season. We’re not going to get to the end of the season without being tested every week in different ways.”

CLARION 31, MONITEAU 6

Score by Quarters

Clarion 6 12 13 0 — 31

Moniteau 0 0 0 6 — 6

Scoring Summary

1st Quarter

C — Michael McCloskey 1 yd run (kick failed), 6:50

2nd Quarter

C — Colton Rapp 1 yd run (pass failed), 2:02

C- Tyler Burford 55 yd pass from Spencer Miller (kick failed), :00

3rd Quarter

C- Rapp 6 yd run (pass failed), 6:53

C- Ryley McMaster 20 yd pass from Miller (Mills Archer pat), 4:15

4th Quarter

M — Corey Goyak 12 yd run (kick failed), 11:04

Team Stats
C M

First Downs 13 8
Rushes-Yards 33-202 41-147
Passing Yards 170 6
Comp-Att-Int 7-14-1 2-6-1
Total Yards 372 153
Fumbles-Lost 1-0 2-1
Penalties-Yards 6-40 2-20
Punts-Avg. 1-34 1-36

Rushing. Clarion : Rapp 17-118, McCloskey 3-1, McMaster 3-22, Logan Minich 6-35, Miller 3-35, Team 1-(-2). Moniteau : Nick Martino 19-88, Goyak 7-22, Mitch DiMaria 7-21, Chance Nagy 4-6, Dalton Anderson 1-11, Dacota Skiver 1-(-3), Team 2-2.

Passing, Clarion : Miller 7-for-14 170 yards, 2 TD’s-1 Int. Moniteau : Nagy 2-for-6 5 yards, 2 Int’s

Receiving, Clarion : McCloskey 1-16, Burford 3-98, Wurster 2-36 McMaster 1-20. Moniteau : Martino 1-2, Goyak 1-3.

Interceptions, Clarion : Miller 1, Burford 1. Moniteau : Wyatt Geibel.