Bears push streak to five

It had been nearly 10 years since the Pleasant Valley football team had gone on a five-game winning streak.

Friday night, the Bears made that stat irrelevant.

Pleasant Valley racked up 453 yards of total offense on its way to knocking off Mountain Valley Conference foe Pocono Mountain West, 40-22. Quarterback Derrik Walling threw for 281 yards and four touchdowns while leading the Bears to points on all four of their first-half drive.

"I feel that we executed the game plan pretty well," said Walling. "We pretty much come out every week with the same game plan. We want to run the ball hard, shoot our underneath shots and big plays will develop.

"We capitalized on pretty much everything. We ran the ball consistently well and we threw the ball well. It was just a great team effort."

Pleasant Valley did hit on three big plays for touchdowns, but two of them weren't until it already had a big lead. The first came when Walling hit tailback Rob Getz on a flag pattern for a 36-yard touchdown midway through the first quarter to put the Bears up 14-7.

Later in the third, Walling connected with Dean Bumbulsky over the middle, who broke some tackles and scampered 60 yards for the score. After the Panthers fumbled away the ensuing kickoff, Walling found his favorite target in Rich Irving three plays later for a 25-yard TD. It was Irving's second TD grab of the night and pushed the Bears' lead to 40-14.

Perhaps the most awkward scoring drive one will ever see occurred in the second quarter. Pleasant Valley took the ball on its own four-yard-line and marched 96 yards in 15 plays for a Dekimbe Smith touchdown. But that wasn't the weird part. The Bears committed four penalties for 45 yards on the drive and continuously put themselves in long-yardage situations.

Walling hit Irving for a big gain on third down, but they were only credited with 21 yards after the Bears were called for holding. On the very next play they were again called for holding - this time a 14-yarder. Still, it didn't seem to phase the Bears' offense as Smith picked up 14 yards on the next play. Walling then hit Getz for 11 yards and a first down.

Once PV got down to the Panthers' 22-yard-line, it struck for a TD as Walling hit Irving in the corner of the endzone. However, the play was called back on another hold. Two plays later on third-and-16, the Bears finally had a call go their way. PM was called for pass interference and gave PV a first down at the 14. Smith eventually ran it in from five yards to cap the eight minute drive. The Bears totaled 112 yards on the drive.

"It just seemed like we were playing on a 200-yard field," said PV head coach Jim Terwilliger. "When you play these types of teams, you can not put yourself in those types of situations."

One thing that the Bears (5-1; 2-0 MVC) did right all night long was keep the Panthers' Terrence Quiteh in check. Quiteh, who had over 200 yards combined in the first two game of the season, was held to just 52 yards on eight carries.

Pleasant Valley has now won five straight for the first time since 2000. While most people credit Terwilliger for the program's quick turnaround, he refused to take much of the credit.

"I haven't taken one snap, I haven't caught one ball and I haven't made one block during this winning streak," said Terwilliger. "It's not me. It's the young men that are showing up to practice every day, every week with a goal in mind. And they work toward that goal."