Pushing through
Indians overcome penalties, turnovers in victory
What do you get your 5-10, 270-pound defensive lineman after his scoop-and-score helped seal your team’s 30-28 WPIAL 6A quarterfinal win against Bethel Park?
After George Freeman’s fourth quarter play Friday, Penn Hills coach Jon LeDonne brainstormed.
“He stripped that ball and was motoring, so I’ve got a feeling I’ll be bringing some pancakes in tomorrow morning,” LeDonne said.
With four failed two-point conversions and one missed extra point, it seemed Penn Hills couldn’t score more than six points at a time. But the Indians kept at it, limiting Bethel Park to one touchdown in the second half and eventually pulling ahead for the win despite two turnovers and 148 yards in penalties.
“Turnovers and penalties … We’re on the field second, third and long, on defense and we give them a penalty and give them a first down,” LeDonne said. “Those are hard to come back from, but we made it happen.”
Penn Hills trailed, 21-18, at halftime, before a 50-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Hollis Mathis to receiver Dante Cephas reclaimed the lead for the Indians in the third quarter. Freeman’s scoop-and-score put the Indians up by nine points before Bethel Park quarterback Anthony Chiccitt connected with Luke Mattola on a six-yard touchdown pass in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter, but the Black Hawks couldn’t recover an onside kick.
Mathis completed 15 passes for 239 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Bethel Park quarterback Anthony Chiccitt competed seven passes for 105 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
“We just needed to play the best half of football that we could have played,” Mathis said. “We played a solid half apart from the turnovers and apart from the penalties. We did a good job as far as keeping the game in hand when things were going rough, and I think that’s why we were able to come back the second half and have a really good half and pull off the win.”
After both of Bethel Park’s lead running backs left the game with injuries, the Black Hawks’ offense stalled.
Tanner Volpatti, who rushed for 102 yards on 12 carries, departed in the third quarter and John Doleno, who rushed for 56 yards on 11 carries, left midway through the fourth quarter.
“The kids didn’t give up,” Bethel Park coach Jeff Metheny said. “They were playing hard. That’s a good football team. We gave them too many plays, we turned the ball over. That really hurt us, down there, that one they scooped and scored. We just didn’t play our game. We gave up a couple plays early but we bounced back. The kids fought hard and quarterback made a lot of throws. They’ve got some good players. They’re fast, they’re big and that’s a dangerous team.”
Penn Hills’ first four plays of the game featured two touchdowns, a 55-yard pass play from Mathis to Daequan Hardy and a 67-yard run by Terry Smith, and an interception by Jared Yantek which set up Bethel Park’s first score of the game.
Bethel Park took a 7-6 lead with a one-yard touchdown run by Mattola and later a 14-12 lead with a 54-yard run by Volpatti.
Despite outgaining the Black Hawks, 302-190, in the first half and making it to the end zone as many times as Bethel Park, the Indians failed on all three of their two-point conversion attempts and trailed by three points.
Next Friday, Penn Hills will face Central Catholic in its first trip to the WPIAL semifinals since the 2008 season.
“This is amazing,” Mathis said. “I couldn’t ask for anything better as far as a first-year starter. This is great. I’m super happy for the guys, I’m happy for the community, and I’m just really proud. But we’ve just got to keep going so we can make it further and further.”