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WILKES-BARRE TWP. — The first night game in the modern era of King’s football.
An electric, capacity crowd at McCarthy Stadium, and a team hungry for its first season-opening victory under head coach Jeff Knarr.
It was the perfect storm for a King’s victory on Saturday night. But Moravian had other plans.
The Greyhounds scored a touchdown with 51 seconds left in the game to shock the Monarchs in a heart-breaking 21-17 score.
“We came up short in this one, but there’s nine more to go” King’s coach Jeff Knarr said. “We’re gonna be OK if we stick together. There were a lot of positives tonight.”
King’s took its first lead of the game with 5:45 remaining in the fourth when quarterback Tom Hehre, making his first collegiate start orchestrated a seven-play, 46-yard drive capped by a 2-yard sneak putting his team in front 17-14. When the Greyhounds got the ball back, the noisy crowd caused havoc helping the Monarchs defense force a three-and-out, and even was instrumental in Moravian calling a timeout.
“It was a great crowd. That’s what you get with a night game, you get the electricity,” Knarr said. “It was a good football game that was close. You could hear and feel the stands vibrating. It was deafening at times.”
When the Monarchs got the ball back with 4:07 left they attempted to run time off the clock, but after a first down on the second play of the drive, the next three went for minus-3, returning the ball to Moravian with 1:35 left.
“We got one (first down) took enough time off and they got the ball with under 2 minutes to go so I thought we were in pretty good shape,” Knarr said.
Two plays into the drive the Greyhounds found themselves with a first-and-goal situation after going 71 yards, 54 of them from blown coverage by the King’s secondary. A few plays later, Moravian had a 21-17 advantage with :51 to go. The Monarchs had one last chance, but got just one completion for eight yards on four pass attempts.
Hehre (206 yards, 1TD, 2 interceptions) shook off a pair of second-half interceptions to lead the Monarchs on the drive to go ahead in the fourth quarter. For a senior making his first start, he easily could have crumbled under pressure in that situation and being demoralized, but he battled through.
“He’s a battler and a competitor and that’s what you want in the position,” Knarr said about his signal-caller. “Even when you make mistakes, your eyes are up and you’re ready to go play, and that’s what Tommy does.”
The King’s defense also overcame problems. The unit gave up 120 rushing yards in the first half — including 80 to Chris Negron, and two rushing scores to Eli Redmond — before holding the Greyhounds to just 11 yards on the ground in the final 30 minutes.
“I think in the beginning a lot of it was missed tackles,” Knarr said. “Then we cleaned that up and we got good coverage and good decent pressure.”
After Moravian went ahead 7-0 in the first quarter, Hehre connected with Mike Palmer for a 10-yard scoring strike completing a 10-play, 73-yard drive to tie the game at 7-7.
Redmond’s second TD of the half put his team in front 14-7 before Mikhail Kniaziewicz nailed a 37-yard field goal for the Monarchs 37 seconds before halftime to pull King’s within three.
Meyers grad Matt DeMarco, a transfer from Division I Monmouth, led the Monarchs with six receptions for 52 yards. Gabe Brown paced the team’s rushing attack with 45 yards.
Moravian 21, King’s 17
Moravian`7`7`0`7`—`21
King’s`7`3`0`7`—`17
First quarter
MOR — Redmond 8 run (Wachter kick) 9:37
KING’S — Palmer 10 pass from Hehre (Kniaziewicz kick) :34
Second quarter
MOR —Redmond 2 run (Wachter kick) 12:37
KING’S — Kniaziewicz 37 field goal 5:47
Fourth quarter
KING’S — Hehre 2 run (Kniaziewicz kick) 5:45
MOR — Redmond 1 run (Wachter kick) :51
Team statistics`Mor`King’s
First downs`12`16
Rushes-yards`35-131`35-75
Passing yards`196`206
Total yards`327`281
Passing`18-32-2`18-34-2
Sacked-yards lost`3-12`3-14
Punts-avg.`8-38.3`8-38.9
Fumbles-lost`0-0`3-0
Penalties-yards`3-40`4-41
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — MOR, Negron 14-87, Redmond 12-50, Gotzon 2-0, Hayes 4-(minus-1), TEAM 3-(minus-5). KING’S, Brown 19-45, Hehre 13-43, Funk 2-(minus-2), Whitehead 1-(minus-11).
PASSING — MOR, Hayes 18-30-2-196. KING’S, Hehre 18-32-2-206, Whitehead 0-2-0-0.
RECEIVING — MOR, Negron 5-35, Racabaldo 3-24, Snyder-Scipio 3-23, Redmond 3-10, Anderson 1-54, Nejad 1-28, Hudson 1-17, Nolan 1-5. KING’S, DeMarco 6-52, Palmer 4-56, Miller 3-21, Marroni 2-37, Flayhart 1-20, Thomas 1-13, Brown 1-7.
INTERCEPTIONS — MOR, Orlando 1-1, Ewald 1-10. KING’S, Russell 1-0, Martuccio 1-0.
MISSED FGs — none
