East Stroudsburg South pulled out all the stops against Whitehall in a District XI Class 5A football semifinal, but the Zephyrs put an end to the Cavaliers’ second-half threat and came up with a 43-28 victory on Nov. 1 at Whitehall.

“Coaches were telling us, second time around, they’re gonna be more hungry, just the fact that we beat them the first time,” said Zephyr quarterback Tanner Dogmanits. “Offense needed to execute, and our defense would make plays for us to stop them.”

East Stroudsburg South opened the third quarter with an onside kick that was recovered by the Cavaliers who went on to tie the game, 14-14.

Justin Hussett (122 rushing yards, 2 touchdowns) rushed 14 yards for a Zephyr touchdown, and Cole Richards’ PAT made the score 21-14.

But East Stroudsburg South wasn’t finished with its trickery on a hand-off from Lyric Parkins to Greyson Fuller, whose 33-yard pass to Ivan Laubach scored a touchdown along with a 2-point conversion for Laubach that gave the Cavs their first lead of the game.

“First of all, I was like, we’ve got to stop them, but at the end of the day, I trusted my defense,” said Dogmanits. “I knew they were gonna change and they were gonna correct what wasn’t working, and that’s what they did. They kept hitting and hitting. [Laubach’s] a good player, and he kept running and getting first downs, but we kept hitting him, and they were gonna break his offense if they kept on running the same plays.”

In the last three minutes of the third quarter, Iskander Blanco’s 2-yard rushing touchdown, and Dogmanits’ 2-point conversion put the Zephyrs back on top, along with Dogmanits’ 4-yard rushing touchdown and Richards’ PAT for a 36-22 lead.

“We’ve been working on it all week, our special package, and it happened to be right now,” said Blanco, who also had 9 tackles. “It felt great. We needed that momentum shift. It was a great game tonight, but job’s not finished. We need a good week of practice, playing a good team next week. We’ve got to come hard.”

Dogmanits had 162 passing yards and 123 rushing yards.

“I would say that we just needed to stay focused,” Dogmanits said. “First half, we weren’t executing on offense, so we needed to pick up our offense a little. We needed to keep pounding the rock, get in the end zone, and keep pulling away with the game.”

Talon Dogmanits had 141 receiving yards and one touchdown.

Whitehall will play in the District XI Class 5A final against Pocono Mountain East at 6 p.m. on Nov. 8 at Catasauqua Middle School.