For Stan Dakosty and Marian, it was stunning

For Mark Rosenberger and Jim Thorpe, it was exhilarating.Last Friday night in Hometown, the Colts raced to a 20-0 first quarter lead against their rivals.While there were still three quarters left to played, history instead hinted at the fact that this game was over.Amazingly, the Olympians rallied to cut the gap to six by halftime, tied the game early in the fourth quarter and then won it on a 26-yard field goal off the foot of James Denny.After the contest, Coach Dakosty said, "To lose like this is tough."For Dakosty, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.Since becoming the Marian head coach back in 1977, he had never lost a game in which his team held a 20-point advantage. How many games had that been? Try 172!Conversely, since Rosenberger has been the mentor at Thorpe his teams had fallen behind by 20 points on 18 occasions and lost every time.So what were his emotions after the rally?"I'm very proud of these kids," said Rosenberger. "We believe in them and they believe in our coaching staff ... it just goes to show you good things will happen when you play hard and don't give up."As impressive as the comeback was, it isn't the best in the TIMES NEWS area. Back on Sept. 22, 1990 Panther Valley fell behind West Hazleton 21-0 but came back to post a 26-21 victory.**********Pleasant Valley's Derrik Walling had a game no Bear quarterback had experienced in a long time.The junior completed 18-of-29 passes for 272 yards and three touchdowns.Since the TIMES NEWS has run individual statistics in its football summaries (1988), the 272 yards are the most by a PV signal-caller. The previous high was 227 by Jeff Regina on Sept. 20, 1996.***********Northern Lehigh's Joey Seremula had five ctaches for 111 yards against Catasauqua last week.The last time a Bulldog player had at least 100 yards receiving in a game was Sept. 10, 1999 when Steve Hluschak had 105 against Palisades.The last Bulldog player to have more than 111 yards receiving was Ryan Van Norman, who had 123 versus Salisbury on Oct. 3, 1997.***********Jim Thorpe's Corey Cinicola not only rallied his team to a win last Friday, but his 126 yards passing put him over 1,000 for the season.That marked the third straight season that Cinicola has reached four digits.In fact, the senior signal-caller now has 4,965 career passing yards and needs just 35 more to reach 5,000 a mark last achieved in the TN area by Panther Valley Cazzie Kosciolek. The former Panther finished his high school career with 5,425 yards passing.***********Congratulations go out to Northwestern head coach Bob Mitchell.Not only did last week's win over Bangor assure the Tigers of a winning record, it also gave Coach Mitchell his 175th career victory.The longtime mentor, who earlier this season, coached his 300th game, currently has a record of 175-129-1. In his 28 years in charge, he has had 17 winning seasons. He has also led his teams to the district playoffs eight times, winning the gold in three of the those years.