HS Football: Schuylkill Haven overwhelms Mahanoy Area; Carestia suffers injury
Niko Carestia, Schuylkill Haven (Photo by First Class School Imaging)
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — Schuylkill Haven turned in another dominating performance Friday evening.
But the victory was far from painless.
Colton Reber ran for 206 yards and had four touchdowns, while Niko Castillo also scored four times during the Hurricanes’ 69-0 rout of Mahanoy Area in a Schuylkill-Colonial Blue Division contest at Rotary Field.
Schuylkill Haven (4-0, 3-0 Blue), the top-ranked Class AA team in Pennsylvania, imposed its will on the youthful Golden Bears (0-4, 0-3) by rolling up 482 yards of total offense and scoring all of its points in the first half.
But the win came at a major price for the Hurricanes.
Senior Niko Carestia suffered a lower left leg injury with 3:42 left in the first quarter when he was dragged down from behind on a run around left end at the Mahanoy Area 3-yard line on the Hurricanes’ side of the field. Carestia was attended to for 15 minutes as his teammates, coaches and fans looked on. He left the game in an ambulance and was taken to the hospital.
Carestia was Schuylkill Haven’s second-leading rusher with 256 yards coming into the game. He was also a big part of the Hurricanes’ defense at linebacker.
“He got horse-collared, twisted down to the ground,” Schuylkill Haven coach Mike Farr said of Carestia’s injury. “It’s a leg injury and it’s probably not great. We are all thinking about him.”
Before he was injured, Carestia had 48 yards on the ground, including a 9-yard scoring run for the Hurricanes’ second touchdown of the game.
“I told them we have to come together and play hard,” Farr said of what he told his team after Carestia’s injury. “That’s what we did. We did the things to finish. Injuries happen. You never replace a kid like that. He’s one of the best players in the state. So, it’s just next man up and we just keep fighting. We have a lot of football ahead of us. We just have to keep working.”
And that’s what Schuylkill Haven did.
Reber went over on the next play after Carestia’s injury from 3 yards out and added scoring runs of 19 and 26 yards in the second quarter. Reber also caught a short flare pass from quarterback Max Heim in the second quarter and turned it into a 60-yard score.
Castillo returned a fumble 17 yards for a touchdown, scored on a 42-yard pass from Heim and added touchdown runs of 8 and 4 yards.
Heim attempted just three passes, but all three went for scores. His first of the evening went to Adam Balulis covering 21 yards for Schuylkill Haven’s first touchdown of the game.
“We had stuff scripted,” Farr said. “Defensively, I knew we were going to be solid. Offensively, we had stuff scripted that we wanted to see. We didn’t block as well up front for some reason, so there are some things we have to fix. But I think part of it, emotionally, they were just spent in some cases.”
Schuylkill Haven’s defense was just as dominating.
The Hurricanes held the Golden Bears to minus-11 yards of offense and only three first downs, with two coming via Schuylkill Haven penalties. Schuylkill Haven also forced six turnovers.
In addition to Castillo’s fumble return for a score, Wyatt Keefer, Braden Shappell and Bryce Reber recovered fumbles for Schuylkill Haven. Bradyn Diehl and Balulis picked off passes for the Hurricanes.
Schuylkill Haven has outscored its opponents 211-33 so far this season. But tougher tests are upcoming the next two weeks.
The Hurricanes host Minersville on Thursday and then travel to Williams Valley on Sept. 26. Williams Valley downed the Miners 43-40 on Friday. The Vikings came into Friday as the No. 3-ranked team in Class AA in Pennsylvania.
It will be even more challenging now without Carestia.
“Luckily, we have a really good backfield,” Farr said. “There are some things we have to clean up up front. Not having (Carestia) on the field is a big factor for us. But we are just going to continue to work. There’s a talent like that that you just miss. Emotionally we just need to keep him in our minds and we will just move on from there.
“Everybody else has to do their job and step up. We have a lot of good football players on this team. I am sure that they are going to play for him and know how hard he’s worked to be a part of that. We wouldn’t be where we are today if he wasn’t a part of that. Unfortunately, life is not fair, so we just have to pick up and move on.”
