Juniata is heading for States!

By Kenny Varner Jr.
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: November 11, 2023

By Joshua Yoder
MIFFLINTOWN – The Juniata Indians came into this game as the District 6 champions and welcomed the District 9 winners the Dubois Beavers and quite simply took care of business Friday night in some High School Football Action by the final score of 36-22.
The Indians went right to work and scored on their first possession of the game with quarterback Wyatt Ehrenzeller completed the drive with an eight yard pass in the endzone to Ethan Espitia. Juniata then took advantage of an offside penalty by the Beavers as Heath Hutchinson completed the two point conversation with a run into the endzone to make it 8-0.
About five minutes later, Juniata created a big play as Ehrenzeller made a quick pass to Jasper Shepps who found daylight and was off to the races for the touchdown that went 70 yards. Kade Wagner completed the extra point for a 15-0 lead.
With just over thirty seconds remaining in the opening period, Dubois finally got on the board as Carter Wilson went into the endzone with a one yard run to cut the lead down to 15-7.
Ehrenzeller put the team on his back in the second quarter as he muscled himself into the endzone for a one yard quarterback sneak.
The Beavers responded as quarterback Trey Wingard found an open Carter Vos for an 18 yard touchdown pass as the score became 22-14 at the break.
But from then on it was all Juniata as the Indians turned up the intensity defensively imposing their will on the Dubois offense throughout the second half.
The lone touchdown of the third quarter came from Hutchinson who went 5 yards on the ground to score.
Then the Indians put on the finishing touches in the fourth quarter as Ehrenzeller connected with Espitia again this time going nine yards for the score.
But to the Beavers credit, they continued to battle as on a kick return, Nathan Kougher managed to break loose a 90 yard return for the score. However that was as close as they could get.
Again the Juniata defense played a major role in the second half. In fact, the Beavers had more yards on the kick return than total offense for the second half which was 14 total yards. Dubois had 144 total yards of offense in the first half.
The Indians were heavily involved with the ground game the whole night and completely dominated the time of possession. In the first half, Juniata had 234 yards of total offense with 135 of those yards came from the ground.
It was even better in the second half as the Indians compiled 153 yards of rushing while having a total of 181 yards for the second half. Offensively Juniata had a grand total of 415 yards of offense for the entire evening.
Ehrenzeller went 5-for-10 in the air for 127 yards and three touchdown passes. He also had 12 carries for 69 yards and a rushing touchdown.
Javier Lopez and Hutchinson also were big on the ground with Lopez getting 19 carries for 97 yards while Hutchinson carried the ball 12 times for 83 yards.
Shepps had two catches in the game for a grand total of 89 yards with a touchdown catch. Shepps also ran the ball once for 10 yards. He also collected an interception for the game as well.
Espitia had three catches for 38 yards and two touchdown catches. Connor Boreman also got himself an interception while Isaiah Staggers and Michael Harlow both shared a sack on quarterback Wingard which was the lone sack for the game.
Juniata moves up to (7-5) and will await to see who they will be faces in the opening rounds of the State playoffs next week.