Ironmen rusty in win
Penalties, mistakes keep Panthers in contest
This wasn’t the way Steel Valley wanted to come out and put its mark on the 2017 season.
Undisciplined is one way to describe how the Ironmen played against Riverside. Sloppy is another.
Yet, at the end of the night, the defending WPIAL and PIAA Class 2A champions did just enough right to put together their 16th consecutive victory and open the season at William V. Campbell Field with a 48-28 victory against the Panthers.
Steel Valley committed a whopping 22 penalties — 17 of the presnap variety on both sides of the ball — for 138 yards.
“We’ve got to clean a lot of things up and it was a lot of mental mistakes,” Steel Valley coach Rod Steele said. “We have a lot of athletic kids in their first time under the lights and the first time in a varsity game, but that was unacceptable and a lot of that was just mental errors.”
Steel Valley (1-0) had instituted the mercy rule, a 35-point second half lead that starts a running clock, in each of its 15 victories a year ago, but that streak ended against the same team against which it began. The Ironmen defeated Riverside (0-1) twice in 2016, once in the opener and the other in the WPIAL semifinals.
This time around, Riverside put a scare into Steel Valley as twice in the second half the Panthers closed the gap to a touchdown before the Ironmen were able to pull away late.
“I thought we took over the tempo of the game when things got physical with in the second quarter and the third quarter,” Riverside coach Ron Sciarro said. “We just made some key mistakes on defense in the third- and fourth-and-longs and they’ve got great athletes and when you let them loose, they’re going to make some plays and they did.”
Steel Valley played without starting running back Najhier West, who suffered a knee injury in a scrimmage against West Mifflin. The Ironmen also had to take the field in the second half without wide receiver/defensive back Amonte Strothers, who had an early interception return for a touchdown before he left the field on the final play of the first half with severe cramping.
“Amonte went down with dehydration and the doctor came over and told me that he needed some IVs and player safety is always going to be first,” Steele said. “Najhier, we’ll know a little more about his status in the coming week.”
Without West and with a new starting quarterback in Trey Karfelt, Steel Valley used several other players on direct snaps to make an impact. It’s also why the team’s leading rusher, Trevon Adams, finished with seven carries for 100 yards and a touchdown and is usually a wide receiver.
Todd Hill also effectively ran the wildcat for a 38-yard touchdown on Steel Valley’s first offensive possession, then Strothers returned an interception 30 yards for a score.
Even after Woodrow Hughes recovered a Steel Valley fumble in the end zone to get Riverside on the board, Hill answered with his second touchdown run on a direct snap and Ricco Williams had a 19-yard punt return for another score for a 28-7 lead with 6:06 left in the first half.
That was when Steel Valley bogged down. Mistake after mistake let Riverside creep back into the game until Shaun Meadows put it away for the Ironmen with a 27-yard interception return with 4:29 remaining.