Warriors pick off Bloom

In a battle of teams fighting for their playoff lives, it was the Waubonsie Valley defense that stole the show.

Senior defensive back Perry Levin had 4 of his team's 5 interceptions as the Warriors (4-3) cruised to a 37-12 victory over Bloom Twp.

"We couldn't do it without the rest of our linemen," Levin said. "The line got back there and hurried the quarterback up and forced the quarterback to throw it up there. I was just there to bring them down."

Facing short fields all night, the Waubonsie Valley offense capitalized. Tyler Castro threw for 222 yards and 4 touchdowns on 15-of-20 passing.

It looked as though the Warriors might be in for a tough night initially. The Blazing Trojans (3-4) stopped the visitors on consecutive plays from inside the 1-yard line to force a turnover. But that was the last time the Warriors would be stopped.

"I thought Tyler was very efficient with the passing game," Waubonsie Valley coach Paul Murphy said. "We had to find out how Bloom wanted to defend us, and they were very very afraid of our bubble screen, so we started throwing some other things we have in our package. Any time you don't punt in game, obviously you've been very efficient."

With the Bloom offense draining time from the clock, the game was tied at 6 early in the second quarter. But a 24-0 Warriors run over the next 25 minutes all but sealed the win.

Junior Scott Kuehn had 3 touchdown catches to go along with 91 receiving yards in the game.

"Most of the plays where I run to the bubble, they don't work without the blocking I have outside," Kuehn said. "That's really what it comes down to. We just executed on the plays we got touchdowns on, and it worked out for us."

Meanwhile, Levin and the Warriors' defensive unit was able to neutralize Bloom quarterback DeAngelo Blatcher. They did so without the help of senior defensive lineman Sherrod Stancil, whom Murphy expects back for next week.

The win was the fourth straight for Waubonsie Valley, which opened the season with three straight losses.

"(We had) a big turnaround point at Neuqua," said junior Scott Kuehn, who had 3 touchdown catches in the game. "We just realized that we need to get everything going and start pulling our heads out of our butts. And we just picked it up there and haven't looked back."