TOWANDA — Giving up nearly 300 rushing yards while being at negative rushing yardage well into the fourth quarter is not a recipe for football success.

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t a winning combination for Canton on Thursday night at Towanda. Led by Riley Vanderpool’s 226 rushing yards, the Black Knights gashed Canton for 282 yards on the ground while holding the Warriors to just five rushing yards, and despite committing 17 penalties for 173 yards, Towanda came away with a 40-14 win over Canton.

The win is the first for the Black Knights over the Warriors since 2017, when this year’s seniors were in fifth grade. It also snaps a string in which Canton outscored Towanda 155-0 over the last three meetings, and 195-6 over the last four dating back to 2019.

Canton, which has been blessed with a larger roster size than most comparable Class A schools over the last handful of years, is back to an average roster size this season, and that combined with some injuries has led to needing to move around some personnel on both lines. That finally caught up to the Warriors on Thursday as they were overmatched up front on both sides of the ball, leading the lopsided margin in rushing yards.

“You’re not going to win with that. We just got a lot of guys out right now,” said Canton coach Tyler Sechrist. “We changed jerseys at halftime and put a wide receiver, Zach Colton, on the line and we had Dawson Burgess, who’s usually a running back, on the line as well. We don’t have a lot in numbers this year, so we just don’t have a lot of depth and it’s really showing with the injuries. If you have to put two of your guys that weigh 145 pounds on the line because you don’t have anyone else, you’re in a world of trouble.”

Quarterback Ben Fitch was under duress all night. The Canton signal-caller was sacked eight times and flushed out of the pocket and forced to scramble on several other plays. He still managed to complete 14-of-25 passes for 130 yards and a touchdown and made several completions on the move and under pressure, but was also picked off twice as Towanda’s front seven made life miserable for him for much of the night.

Meanwhile, on the other side, it was all about Vanderpool, who racked up 323 yards of total offense, throwing for 97 on 6-of-10 passing, in addition to his 18 rushes for 226 yards, and he was responsible for five touchdowns, four rushing and one passing.

“Towanda has a strong line and they have a good team and they were able to dominate us up front,” said Sechrist. “We’re hoping to get some guys back healthy and we just need to stay together as a family and keep playing. The injuries have really made our inexperience and lack of depth show but at least some of these kids are getting experience and we’re just going to keep playing football.”

Vanderpool rushed for three of his four touchdowns in the first half, scoring from 47, 21 and 37 yards out. He had 110 yards at halftime, but the Black Knights only led by a single score, 20-14 at the break. That was largely due to Towanda committing 10 penalties for 108 yards in the first half alone, including five personal foul or unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.

Those penalties aided both of Canton’s touchdowns, particularly the second one. Canton’s first touchdown was a 10-play, 77-yard drive that took 4:40 and ended with a three-yard run by Aydin Holcomb at the 10:01 mark of the second quarter to tie the game 7-7.

After Vanderpool scored two more touchdowns on consecutive drives, including one that started following an interception near midfield, Towanda led 20-7 with 4:11 remaining until halftime.

But the Black Knights then gave Canton an interception of its own, as Holcomb picked off Vanderpool near midfield after Towanda was pushed back 25 yards in penalties. A personal foul following the interception gave Canton 15 more yards, as did a pass interference foul, and four plays later, Canton pulled within a single score on Holcomb’s two-yard touchdown reception from Fitch with under a minute to play in the half.

But Canton wasn’t able to muster up much of anything in the second half. The Warriors punted twice and turned it over on downs twice, managing just 38 yards in the second half.

Towanda got Vanderpool’s fourth rushing touchdown of the night to open the second half, as he went in front 10 yards just two plays after ripping off a 62-yard run on the first play of scrimmage of the second half.

Vanderpool then helped Towanda capitalize on a fumbled snap on a punt for Canton that resulted in just a one-yard punt, and Vanderpool found Wil Shrawder for a five-yard touchdown reception early in the fourth quarter. Towanda wrapped up the scoring with the only touchdown of the night that didn’t involve Vanderpool, a three-yard run by Gage Evans with a minute to play.

Canton 0 14 0 0 — 14

Towanda 7 13 6 14 — 40

First quarter

T–Riley Vanderpool 47 run (WHeaton kick), 9:31.

Second quarter

C–Aydin Holcomb 3 run (McRoberts kick), 10:01.

T–Riley Vanderpool 21 run (pass failed), 7:13.

T–Riley Vanderpool 37 run (Wheaton kick), 4:11.

C–Aydin Holcomb 2 pass from Ben Fitch (McRoberts kick), 0:46.

Third quarter

T–Riley Vanderpool 10 run (run failed), 10:59.

Fourth quarter

T–Wil Shrawder 5 pass from Riley Vanderpool (Wheaton kick), 11:13

T–Gage Evans 3 run (Wheaton kick), 1:00.

TEAM STATISTICS

C T

First downs 15 16

Rushes-yds 34-5 32-282

Passing yards 130 97

C-A-I 14-25-2 6-10-1

Fumbles-lost 1-0 3-1

Penalties-yards 5-40 17-173

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING–Canton, Ben Fitch 21-(minus 17); Bailey Gardner 9-25; Aydin Holcomb 2-4 TD; Tyler Wright 2-(minus 7). Towanda, Riley Vanderpool 18-226 4 TD; Gage Evans 6-38 TD; Caden Delamater 5-21; Jace Gunther 1-3; Rylee Sluyter 1-1; Tahshon Garner 1-(miuns 7).

PASSING–Canton, Ben Fitch 14-25-2 130 TD. Towanda, Riley Vanderpool 6-10-1 97 TD.

RECEIVING–Canton, Aydin Holcomb 7-62 TD; Rylan Wesneski 5-44; Monte Whitehead 1-16; Bailey Gardner 1-8. Towanda, Hayden Space 2-34; Wil Shrawder 2-20 TD; Tahshon Garner 1-23; Rylee Sluyter 1-20.