Abby drops season finale to Pittsville

After jumping out to a 4-0 start, the Abbotsford Falcons’ season ended on a five-game losing streak after the team dropped their season finale against Pittsville last Friday. The Falcons arrived in Pittsville with aspirations of finding a way into the WIAA playoffs, knowing that this was their final chance to notch a win against a Marawood conference opponent. Instead they served as the last stepping stone the Panthers needed to sneak into the postseason, falling to the home team 41-6.

It was always going to be an uphill battle, with the Falcons entering the game beaten and bruised from a tough Marawood schedule. After their loss to Colby the week before, injuries were starting to pile up for Abbotsford. Two freshmen and five sophomores were slated to start against the Panthers because of this. Meanwhile Pittsville was coming off its first conference victory over Marathon, where they had defeated the Red Raiders by 30 points.

Despite this, Abbotsford managed to ground out 244 yards rushing against the Pittsville defense. Chrisitan Fuentes accumulated 154 of those yards, averaging 7.7 yards per carry. He also provided the Falcons with their biggest play on offense, a 48-yard scamper for a touchdown in the third quarter.

Unfortunately for Abbotsford, the score still left them in a 28-6 hole and there was little that the visitors could muster to change those circumstances. They had few answers for Pittsville’s rushing attack, which racked up 373 yards and five touchdowns on just 33 carries. The combination of Panthers’ backs Dylan Luther and Marcus Getsinger proved lethal, with the former coming away from the game with 168 yards and three touchdowns and the latter providing huge plays, ending with 190 yards on seven attempts.

98 of those 190 rushing yards came on the first score of the game, when Getsinger took the ball to the house on a play that started on the Pittsville two-yard line in the first quarter. The Panthers would add two more scores in the second quarter, one on a 4-yard run by Luther and another on a 73-yard run from Getsinger.

Coming out of halftime up 20-0, the Panthers added a special teams touchdown to their resume when Dawson Luther returned a kickoff 80 yards for the score. Abbotsford got on the board later in the third off of Fuentes’ long run, but it was all Panthers afterwards. The home team scored twice more in the half, running the score to 41-6 before the clock finally clicked down to zero.

“We played really hard and well at times, but we weren’t consistent enough to score or to keep them from having big plays, which caused the game to get out of hand in the first half,” head coach Jake Knapmiller said.

While their defense struggled to put a stop to Pittsville’s rushing attack, the Falcons found that their offense once again lacked the consistency to string together scoring drives. Outside of Fuentes, Abbotsford lacked a rusher that averaged over 3.8 yards per carry. They also struggled to find success in the pass game, ending the night with only 17 yards through the air.

Irvin Aguilera served as Abbotsford’s quarterback. He finished the evening with 52 yards rushing on 15 carries and completed one pass on six attempts. That one completion was nabbed by Evan Reis for 17 yards.

Jacob Hirsch, Emilio Escalera and Evan Schunk all had carries for the Abbotsford offense. Hirsch had 20 yards on six attempts, Escalera gained 15 yards on four attempts, and Schunk had three yards on as many carries.

Defensively, Fuentes led the team with 10 total tackles and pulled in the only turnover of the game on an interception of Pittsville’s Waylon Grimm. Schunk added nine tackles and Daniel Davila finished the evening with eight.

It’ll be back to the drawing board for an Abbotsford team that struggled in the second half of their season. It was a year reminiscent of the one prior; after a hot start, the Falcons had a tough time finding wins once the conference schedule began.

“I think this season opened some of our players’ eyes to how big a difference taking the off-season for granted makes against the teams we play in our conference,” Knapmiller said. “The size and speed in the Marawood are tops in our state for small schools.”

That being said, they also had to face a lot of adversity throughout the season, and Knapmiller believes that his team handled these difficulties with poise.

“I’m very proud of our group of athletes for showing character and resilience all year,” he said. “We had injuries, COVID, people not going out that should be, more injuries, and ended up playing most of our JV players two times a week. It wasn’t easy but no one complained or walked away from the challenges. Our future is bright with a lot of returning players getting piles of experience.”

The Falcons will have six seniors graduating, but they will have a large number of their starters hopefully returning next season. They are also looking to improve on their overall numbers, partially by getting players who did not play this year to come out next season and with the addition of a larger eighth grade team.

“It’s clear [the players] understand where we need to improve as a team and where they need to improve as players,” Knapmiller said. “Now we need to apply ourselves. Our returning players have some serious talent and now have experience.”