Steelers grind out win over Chargers
WPIAL champ can’t match size of opponent
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was the first team since August to hold a lead against Farrell, but it was short-lived and the Steelers marched into the PIAA Class 1A title game with a 41-10 semifinal triumph against the Chargers at Slippery Rock University. Farrell will play District 2 champion Lackawanna Trail in the final at 1 p.m. Thursday at HersheyPark Stadium.
The victory Friday night was Farrell coach Jarrett Samuels’ first against a WPIAL team. He was previously 0-6, with five losses in the semifinals. Farrell is a former WPIAL program with six championships to its credit, most recently in 1996.
“The pressure was this game,” Samuels said. “I had King Kong on my back. King Kong’s gone now. I can have fun. It was the whole WPIAL thing. The WPIAL had continued to whoop us.”
OLSH (12-2) took a 3-0 lead after Ryan Gehring booted a 23-yard field goal to cap the Chargers’ opening drive. But the Steelers answered with a touchdown, then OLSH gave Farrell a short field to work with after an unsuccessful fake punt in their territory. That led to another Farrell score and the Steelers rolled from there.
In order to get that elusive win against a WPIAL opponent, Farrell played like a WPIAL team. Samuels watched the tape from OLSH’s only other loss, to Jeannette, in September. He utilized a similar game plan to slow down Chargers quarterback Tyler Bradley. The Steelers defensive front nailed Bradley with six sacks.
“That kid’s a great quarterback,” Samuels said. “We knew if we could get to him with a four-man rush, our secondary was good enough to contain him. We wanted to make him grind and not give the deep ball up.”
Bradley completed 11 of 23 passes for 122 yards with no touchdowns and an interception. He ends his career with 8,450 yards. He trails only South Fayette’s Brett Brumbaugh (11,084), Gateway’s Brady Walker (8,816) and Sto-Rox’s Lenny Williams (8,508) on the WPIAL’s all-time list of passers.
OLSH’s touchdown came when Andrew Schnarre scooped up an offensive fumble and ran it the final 3 yards into the end zone in the third quarter.
District 10 champion Farrell (14-0) plowed through OLSH to get to the PIAA final for the first time since 2015. Christian Lewis carried the ball 21 times for 189 yards and broke open the game with two long runs in the second half. He scored on bursts of 69 and 56 yards on consecutive possessions.
“I think the big thing that they did is they have good patience with their backs,” OLSH coach Dan Bradley said. “We were able to clog up in the middle and they were able to bounce it out slowly and be patient and they had some big runs down the sideline.”
Steelers quarterback Kyi Wright added another 84 yards on 14 carries. He scored on a couple of 1-yard plunges in the first half. Wright, who stands 6 feet 3 and weighs 240 pounds, also is an all-state linebacker and a Pitt recruit.
“When Kyi was running the ball, he just chewed them up,” Bradley said. “I don’t want to say it was demoralizing, but we just didn’t have an answer for it.”
The Steelers five linemen weigh in at 278, 282, 283, 295 and 310 pounds.
“We had the game plan to run right at them,” Samuels said. “I got hogs this year and I got dogs this year.”
When they packed it in tight and played smash-mouth, there was little the Chargers could do to stop the momentum.
“Whenever they decided to line up and go two tight and bring an extra lineman and come straight downhill at us, we didn’t have an answer for that,” Bradley said. “They are a big, physical team.”
Wright began the day with 1,591 passing yards with 25 touchdowns and just one interception. He was 0 for 2 Friday with an interception made by Sig Saftner.