Mistakes haunt Line Mtn.

DUNCANNON - Early in the season, Line Mountain played with a confidence and swagger rare for a team with such youth.

But on a damp, chilly November evening, it became official: the Eagles have crashed to Earth. With only one regular season game remaining before the District 4 playoffs begin, Monday's rescheduled date at Susquenita gave head coach Mike Carson little indication his team had regained some of that maturity.

The Blackhawks, a senior-oriented squad, took advantage

of four unforced Eagles' errors to win 27-7 on their soggy home field.

"The old clichés about shooting yourself in the foot, if so, we wouldn't have any feet left and we just…" a reflective Carson said, looking for the right words and perhaps answers internally after his team's third loss of the season.

The game, which had been originally scheduled to be played on Friday night, was moved to Monday because of poor field conditions after rain last week was still very soft in spots and left footballs slick and footing unsure.

Line Mountain fumbled three times, two on mishandled handoffs they've been executing since summer, and another on a muffed fair catch of a punt.

Line Mountain's problems, however, started before its first turnover.

After stopping Susquenita on the the game's opening possession, the Eagles took possession on their own 43, and moved the ball in chunks until a block in the back call five yards away from the action on a running play put the them in a hole. Two consecutive false start penalties on the offense, combined with an incomplete pass and the aforementioned illegal block took them from a second-and-2 to a fourth-and-16, and a possible initial lead, which has been so important to the youthful Eagles in their six wins this season, evaporated.

"It started with the series of three-consecutive penalties," Carson said. "We held them, had good field position and started moving the ball, but a penalty, lost a first down, and two more penalties.

"It's not that we didn't make an effort, but once they got momentum, they played really hard and we were never able to dig ourselves out of the hole we put ourselves in."

The Eagles' next chance on offense ended after only one play when they lost a fumble at the Susquenita 39.

Three plays later, the Blackhawks' Josh Shearer scored from three yards out.

Line Mountain's next fumble three possessions later resulted in another quick score by the Blackhawks, a 51-yard completion from Ethan Reichert to Zach Kenny to give Susquenita a 12-0 advantage.

"At the beginning of the year, I talked about us being young," Carson said, "but I feel like that should have been put to bed six weeks ago, but we continue to make young mistakes even though not everybody that's making those mistakes is a young player. We're playing like an immature football team, and this is what happens."

After Susqenita's second score, the Eagles put the ball in quarterback Marty Beninsky's hands and the offense ran a perfectly executed two-minute drill which resulted in a Beninsky to Mike Marciniak 32-yard touchdown on a stop-and-go route along the visitor's sideline. Marciniak out-fought two defenders in the corner of the end zone for Line Mountain's lone score.

The Beninsky-to-Marciniak combination accounted for eight completions for 126 yards, while the running game stalled because of the muck, the mire and the insistent effort of the Blackhawks' defense, which was stacked in the box expecting the run.

"We even talked before the game was over that maybe we have to throw the ball 40 times on Friday night," Carson said. "Right now everybody is packing the house and until we can prove that we can throw the ball and make them spread out again. This wasn't anybody's fault, but there were places out there that were like a cow pasture."

The Eagles host Pine Grove on Friday in their final Twin Valley Conference game of the year.

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