After coming from behind last week for its first win of the football season, Warwick scored early and then held on to defeat stubborn Ephrata, 17-7 [box score] Friday night in Lititz.

 

The Warriors (2-1) had 216 yards total offense, while the Mounts (0-3) notched 171 for the game.

 

Both teams swapped early possessions before Ephrata mounted a nice drive only to lose the ball and momentum when Andrew Hackman picked off a Bobby Nye pass at midfield with 3:23 left in the first quarter.

 

Warwick took over at the Mount 34 and ran a 10-play drive ending in Gabe Taylor's one yard plunge on the second play of the second quarter to put the Warriors up 7-0.

 

Taylor led Warwick on the ground with 40 yards on 15 carries, while Zain Dawood added 34 yards on only eleven touches.

 

For Ephrata, Blake Weaver carried the ball 10 times for 79 yards and Dakota Keefer ran for 25 yards on 12 carries.

 

Late in the first half, Ephrata faced fourth-and-goal from the Warwick 5. Nye threw a bullet to Keefer, who was all alone but couldn't make the catch, and the Mounts came up empty.

 

The Warriors took possession to start the second half and ran off a 12-play drive, ending with a 26-yard field goal by Anthony Fatjo to lead 10-0.

 

Ephrata answered with its first touchdown drive of the season.

 

Starting at their 35, the Mounts ran off 15 plays before Weaver scored from nine yards out to close the gap to 10-7 with 13 seconds left in the third quarter.

 

Ephrata had one final drive, but came up short when a Nye pass fell incomplete at the Warrior 23.

 

Warwick scored with 44 seconds to play on a 31-yard pass from Zach Hurst to Austin Myers.

 

"I feel comfortable throwing to any of our receivers, tonight it was (Myers) who was open," said Hurst.

 

"They (Ephrata) were playing off me and the balls were thrown perfectly. That made it easy," offered Myers.

 

Hurst ended the game with 149 yards on 11 completions. Four went to Myers for 75 of the 149 total yards.

 

"The dropped pass hurt us," said Ephrata coach Scott Sheely. "We're young and to come out and play the way we did, I think we did a great job. We will be all right."

 

Meanwhile, Warwich coach Bob Locker gave a lot of credit to Ephrata. 

 

"They made us throw tonight," Locker said. "We tried to run, but they put enough in the box and forced us to pass."