Every team that faces Conestoga Valley wants to stop Kevin Kelley.
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No team has pulled off that feat better than Cocalico did Friday night.
CV's star running back was given the ball 38 times. He managed 113 yards, a pedestrian total by his extremely high standards.
That was the primary reason Cocalico walked off with a 21-14 victory in a Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Two football game played in Denver.
"We focused on him," Cocalico linebacker Andrew Prevoznik said of Kelley. "We knew he was going to get the ball close to 40 times. We knew they were just going to keep going back to him and feeding him until he broke a big one. We just didn't want to let that happen."
It never did.
Kelley's longest run was 11 yards and he was held to three yards or fewer on 22 of his 38 attempts. The 5-8, 175-pound senior entered the night as the L-L League's leading rusher with 1,685 yards and 22 touchdowns. He had been averaging 6.8 yards a carry.
"The philosophy was I didn't want him to beat us," Cocalico coach Dave Gingrich said. "I know he could. But I didn't want him to beat us. If we're going to lose this game, it wasn't going to be because No. 31 ran for 350 yards."
Even with Cocalico's display of defensive excellence, the Eagles needed to rally from a 14-7 halftime deficit to prevail.
Quarterback Matt Carty's 4-yard touchdown run in the third quarter cut CV's lead to 14-13, but a missed extra point kept Cocalico from tying the score. Austin Hartman's 5-yard TD run with 6:40 remaining in the fourth quarter pushed the Eagles over the top.
Cocalico made three key defensive stands in the final period.
Still leading 14-13, the Buckskins advanced to Cocalico's 17-yard line. Earvin Johnson sacked quarterback Alex Dienner on a fourth-and-3 play, which set up the Eagles' go-ahead drive.
Once it was trailing 21-14, CV had two chances to drive for the tying touchdown. The drives ended in interceptions by Shiron Hudson and Carty. Carty's INT came with 46 seconds remaining after CV had crossed midfield.
With so much of Cocalico's defensive attention focused on Kelley, Dienner flashed big-play skills. The junior threw touchdown passes to Stefan Sensenig and Leonard Williams as CV built its 14-7 first-half lead. Dienner finished 10 of 18 for 163 yards.
It wasn't enough.
"Their defense did a great job," said CV coach Tom Nichols, whose team is 6-3 overall and 4-2 in Section Two. "… They took away some things that we've been able to do. They committed a lot of guys to the run."
It was a gratifying win for Cocalico (7-2, 4-2), which endured a flu bug that threw a wrench into the Eagles' preparation this week. Gingrich said his team had to practice with as few as 28 players, down from the typical 40.
Backup quarterback Ryan Schweitzer, who had been starting in place of the injured Carty, wasn't even on the sideline Friday night. Carty, who had missed the previous two games with an ankle injury, made an impactful return. The senior rushed for 67 yards and passed for 72 yards.
"We had about as bad a week as you could possibly have," Gingrich said.
"It was definitely different," Prevoznik added. "On scout team we had some linemen playing cornerback because we just didn't have enough guys. It was difficult because we're not getting the best looks out there."
Despite all of the distractions, Cocalico's players found a way to knock off a likely District Three playoff team. They did it by holding the most productive running back in the league in check.
"I don't know how many yards Kevin Kelley had," Gingrich said, "but he earned every daggone one of them."
Kelley's actual number of yards really wasn't that important to Cocalico's coach. All that mattered is CV's star didn't have enough.
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