Wade steers Clairton into another title game
Clairton is going to Hershey for the seventh time in the past nine years. But making it to a PIAA title game this time was anything but a snap.
For Clairton, the Class 1A semifinal Friday night was a bizarre case of Slippery Pigskin at Slippery Rock. Clairton’s quarterbacks and running backs spent much of the night as carpet cleaners, scooping the ball off the turf after bad snaps from center in a shotgun formation. If they weren’t bending over to chase rolling balls, those same QBs were jumping in the air to snare high snaps.
But in the end, Clairton was the center of attention again, a state finalist after defeating Farrell, 24-6, on a cold night at MihalikThompson Stadium. The Bears rode a strong defensive effort and another big game from star senior Lamont Wade, who ran for 248 yards on 22 carries and became only the third running back in WPIAL history to reach 7,000 career yards rushing.
But about those snaps. Undefeated Clairton (14-0) lost 93 yards on bad snaps from center. The errant snaps accounted for all but two of the Bears’ 12 fumbles. But Farrell recovered only one.
“It was frustrating to watch,” said Clairton coach Wayne Wade. “It’s just good that we got a great start to the game. Going up, 18-0 [in the first half] helped, so those fumbles didn’t hurt us that much. Plus, our defense played great.”
Clairton quarterback Noah Hamlin, who missed the past two games with a knee injury, said he does remember being in a game with so many bad snaps.
“It was in midget leagues,” said Hamlin.
Clairton tried two different centers — sophomore Vincent King and senior Carlito Pettiford. Both had troubles. Besides the ones that rolled back to the quarterbacks, a number of others were high.
Teams in the WPIAL use a different ball for the PIAA playoffs.
“I just think it was because those were brand new balls, and it’s hard to break in those in a couple days,” said Clairton coach Wayne Wade. “Plus, it was wet and slick tonight. It rained before the game. The ball was wet. We’ll be all right.”
Hamlin said, “Hey, it happens. It’s just a little adversity. You have to deal with it.”
And when you have Lamont Wade, you can deal with a lot of things. Wade scored one touchdown and also lifted his career rushing total to 7,005 yards.
His touchdown came in the second quarter. Wade has said in the past that he used to be a pretty good baseball player. He must have been a shortstop the way he scooped up a bad backwards pass from Hamlin.
Hamlin tried a short backwards pass to Wade in the right flat, but Hamlin threw it into the ground. No problem. Wade simply caught it on one hop, stepped on the bag and turned a double play. Oops. Rather, he simply scooped it up flawlessly, stepped past a few tacklers and turned on the jets down the right sideline for a 72yard touchdown run.
Wade had 193 yards rushing in the first half. Farrell coach Jarrett Samuels contended the pass to Wade was a forward pass.
“Our defense was outstanding, outside of a few blown assignments,” said Farrell coach Jarrett Samuels. “Against a good team like Clairton, you give them an inch and they’ll pop one.
Farrell’s offense had little pop, mainly because leading rusher Braxton Chapman missed his third game with a knee injury. And recovering only one of the fumbles was costly.
Clairton’s defense was outstanding again, holding Farrell to 91 yards rushing and 117 total yards and beating the Steelers in the semifinals for the fourth time since 2008.
Clairton had an 18-0 halftime lead. Beside Wade’s score, Hamlin scored on a 1yard quarterback sneak on a fourth-down play, and Kifjafi Fuqua on a 4-yard run.
Farrell scored on Jorudan Townsend’s 3-yard run in the fourth quarter. The Steelers also had the ball in the red zone two other times in the second half, but didn’t score.
Tre’sean Howard had a 95yard run for Clairton’s final touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Clairton will play in the title game against Bishop Guilfoyle, the two-time defending PIAA champion which has a 46-game winning streak. Bishop Guilfoyle beat Clairton in the championship two years ago.