Ephrata survives Elizabethtown rally for first Section 2 win

There were plenty of reasons for Ephrata coach Kris Miller to be concerned.

The Mounts committed 13 penalties and completed only three passes in Friday night's Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Two home football game against winless Elizabethtown.

But the only numbers that Miller thought were important were the final score in Ephrata's 17-10 victory at War Memorial Field.

"Our kids did enough to win the football game," Miller said. "At the end of the day we had more points than they did, and that's a positive thing."

Miller knows the Mounts (1-1 L-L, 3-2 overall) will have to play a cleaner game to get back into contention for a section title. But breaking a two-game losing streak was the first step in that direction.

Brayden Brown rushed for 123 yards and Caleb Grant threw a pair of touchdown passes to lead the Mounts over the Bears (0-1, 0-5). Two of the three passes Grant completed went for touchdowns, a 73-yard screen to Nick Keller and a 19-yard throw to Nate Conover in the end zone, both in the third quarter.

The Mounts threatened to put the game away in the fourth. Leading by 14 points, Ephrata stopped the Bears on downs at their own 30-yard line. After driving to the 4 on a couple of power runs by Brown, the Mounts' third errant snap went over Grant's head and Prince Wratto scooped it up and raced 75 yards for Elizabethtown's only touchdown.

Trailing 17-10, the Bears came up with a stop and got the ball back on their 15 with 5:45 left. They advanced beyond their own 40 but lost the ball on downs with just over a minute left to seal another frustrating loss.

"Who's blowing us out?" asked Elizabethtown coach Keith Stokes. "Nobody. We'll figure it out."

The Mounts also still have plenty to fix. They were limited to a 36-yard field goal by Evan Honberger in the first half to take a 3-0 lead.

The second half began with a slew of penalties. Elizabethtown was called for unsportsmanlike conduct prior to the second-half kickoff. On the first play from scrimmage, Ephrata was flagged for two personal fouls on the same play, then a pair of holding penalties on back-to-back plays.

"We let our emotions get the best of us," Miller said. "But sometimes too much emotion is better than no emotion at all."

Thanks to a defense that forced four Elizabethtown turnovers, the Mounts were able to escape with the win despite committing 143 yards in penalties on top of trouble getting the ball from the center to the quarterback.

"There were a lot of mistakes," Miller said. "It's hard to win a football game and I don't want to take that away from our kids. But we have some film to watch ... to clean that up."