YORK — On a night with fog so thick it was difficult to make out the yard markers on the opposite side of the field, sophomore quarterback Teagan Hynes had no trouble picking out eight different receivers.
“He’s got the quarterback vision,” said senior tight end Jake Nelson, “and he really dominates out there. We’ve got him to thank for most of those completions.”
Hynes threw for two touchdowns and nearly 200 yards as the Wildcats beat visiting Gardiner, 34-13, in a Class C South football game Friday night.
Both teams are 2-1.
Hynes completed 16 of 24 passes for 198 yards and shrugged off three interceptions. He was not sacked.
Nelson was in on five sacks of Gardiner’s sophomore quarterback, Noah Reed, who also threw for a pair of touchdowns. Reed started in place of the injured Sean Michaud, who did not suit up after leading Gardiner to a 35-30 victory last week against Winslow.
“We just have to learn to play without him,” Gardiner coach Joe White said of Michaud, who scored on a bootleg in the waning seconds last week. “York played a great game tonight. They rose up and we did not play well at all.”
Ten penalties contributed to Gardiner’s demise. The Tigers pulled within a touchdown at 21-13 late in the third quarter and Garrett Maheux stripped a York ballcarrier to give the Tigers new life.
One play later, Colin Edminster intercepted a Reed pass and returned the ball 28 yards for a touchdown. Riley Johnston’s PAT kick put the Wildcats ahead 28-13 early in the fourth
“They sent two guys deep and I just read the quarterback and read my receiver and made a play on the ball,” Edminster said. As for the return: “There was a lot of bodies down there. I figured keep my head down and keep going.”
With just over a minute remaining in the game, York’s Noah Caramihalis bulled in from six yards out to finish out the scoring.
The Wildcats led 21-7 at intermission after a flurry of activity in the final two minutes of the second quarter.
Reed made his first pass reception count, hitting a streaking Matt Boynton deep down the middle and Boynton outran all pursuers for a 92-yard score.
York responded with an efficient seven-play drive covering 69 yards as Hynes connected on four of five pass attempts. The big ones covered 21 yards to Connor Daley and 17 to Riley Linn, who made a difficult catch in traffic within a yard of the end zone.
Shane Pidgeon took it in from there and Johnston booted his third PAT kick with 42 seconds remaining.
Earlier in the quarter, Pidgeon caught a pass from Hynes in the left flat and scampered inside the left pylon for an 8-yard touchdown reception that capped a 10-play drive, also of 69 yards.
York had taken a 7-0 lead by driving 77 yards on its second possession, with Hynes hitting Johnston in stride down the left sideline for a 40-yard strike midway through the first quarter.
“Huge win,” Nelson said. “First home win of this season. We were supposed to lose this game, but we showed out.”
Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or
Twitter: GlennJordanPPH
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