On a night where more than 50 Cumberland Valley football alumni gathered to honor legendary Eagles head coach Tim Rimpfel, who died earlier this week, the 2021 Cumberland Valley squad posted its third victory in a row by upending Altoona 27-14 in a Commonwealth Division tilt at The Chap.
KEYS TO VICTORY
Right before halftime, with the visiting Mountain Lions holding a 7-3 lead, Cumberland Valley junior quarterback Isaac Sines caught fire and marched the Eagles right down the field in hurry-up fashion to grab a 10-7 halftime advantage. CV needed only five plays and 72 seconds to travel 57 yards. Sines, who had 6 yards passing prior to that drive, completed all four of his throws for 54 yards, including a 6-yard TD toss to J.D. Hunter — the first of two touchdown passes to Hunter..
Ignited by that late first-half drive to take the lead, CV came out on the opening drive of the second half and again marched right down the field, covering 61 yards in only six plays. The final 34 yards was a Sines-to-Hunter TD pass on a nice piece of improvising by Sines as he eluded pressure and found Hunter in a seam.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
Sines finished with 146 passing yards and 52 rushing yards to account for 196 of the Eagles’ 276 total yards with a pair of touchdown passes, two 35-yard field goals and three extra points. … Outside linebacker Max Wilken had a 26-yard interception return for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to ice it for CV. … Altoona had less than 100 total yards the second half, with most of that coming on the final drive in the dying minutes of the game with mostly reserves on the field. … Three of the four turnovers in the game belonged to the Mountain Lions. … All three of Cumberland Valley’s penalties negated plays cover 25 or more yards. … CV punter Paddy Hernjack averaged 46.5 yards per kick on a pair of punts.
WHAT WE SAW
Cumberland Valley was on tilt for most of the first half. The Eagles offense was struggling to move the ball against the tough interior defense of the Mountain Lions, and CV’s defense was getting gashed on the edges by the jet sweep. Altoona had the upperhand most of the first half until that late hurry-up drive by the Eagles. From that moment on the entire dimension of the game changed.
Altoona played well and its ground game was effective. The Mountain Lions just made too many mistakes to win at CV. Not only did Altoona turn the ball over three times, they also had 56 yards in penalties. And once they were down by more than two scores, throwing the ball is not how this offense moves.
THEY SAID IT
“We had a good game plan, trusted our game plan, the receivers made good plays and the line blocked well. That was a good drive that gave us momentum going into the half. It definitely turned the game around for us. We made some adjustments at halftime then came right out and went down the field and scored again. I think we did a much better job finishing the game this week, something we didn’t do well last week.” — Cumberland Valley QB Isaac Sines